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[dazza]

Today I took my royal Enfield bullet 350 2007 year out for a ride I ain’t used it much but I regularly place it on trickle charge but I noticed today that when I selected the right or left indicator or pressed the horn the bike would start to splutter and run terrible so before I start looking I thought idd ask for advice would it be battery ? Oh yes also for a while if I opened the bike up it would run roughly but then after a while she run ok until I used any switches

[windmill john]

My initial feeling based on motorcycles generally, would be check all connections for corrosion.
If you have a Boyer ignition, applying a little power draw like an indicator then getting missing, could be a low or bad battery.

Test battery and look at all wiring connections.

But.... someone can confirm..... I thought when the engine is running, a low battery would not affect ignition on a Bullet?

[stinkwheel]

It can and it will run rough if the battery is in an advanced state of discharge. In fact, it can cut out altogether. This is the case with points ignition, I had this last year when I vanned the bike down the motorway but had left the ignition on overnight. I managed to get some charge into the battery with jump leads, enough to start it. However it died again a few miles up the road and was worse at higher revs.

A much longer interval on the jump leads to get the battery back up again saw it charging and running properly.

You pretty much need to be down a reasonable way under 10V for this to happen.

I would expect an electronic ignition to be even fussier over low voltage. Boyers were known for liking a healthy 12+V on Japanese bikes.

John is correct on his advice to check the eartyhs connections. The main frame earth (usually on the battery box mounting bolt) is quite prone to corrosion and will play absolute hob with your charging system.

Batteries don't last forever too and on a bullet, you tend not to notice until they are utterly and totally knackered. On more modern bikes with electric start, it's obvious when they are starting to fail. A battery that can only just maintain 10V will keep a bullet running as if nothing was wrong.

[Adrian]

I had a 125 Honda which started behaving the same way, it turned out that the rectifier was failing, a replacement rectifier cured the problem.

So besides checking the state of your battery, you might find a new reg/rectifier is needed.

A.

[silcoautomotive0]

A choke cable is intended to limit the flow of air within the carburetor of AN engine. This helps enrich the fuel-air mixture, raising the flexibility to start out AN engine in low-temperature conditions.
For carburetor-fitted bikes, a choke valve/cable helps guarantee there's enough usable fuel to start out the engine once temperature and climate area unit low. The quantitative relation of air and fuel needed to start out the engine changes with temperature because of the physics and physics behind combustion and air density.
A cold engine won’t vaporize the fuel further because it would in hotter conditions, that the choke helps enrich the mixture (either by adding in additional fuel or surgical procedure airflow) to extend the number of flammable vapor accessible to start out the engine.
Simply put, the choke is regarding creating additional fuel accessible for the engine to use.

[dazza]

Thanks all for reply I have a yellow motad battery I shall buy a new one online as Hitchcocks don’t send out batteries anymore I saw this one would this be the correct one and is it a good make YB14L-A2 AGM Powerline Motorcycle Battery 12V 14Ah YB14LA2

[vince]

Hi, this symptom can occur when old style batteries electrolite had gone down and needed topping up. Vince

[jawa-enfield]

Is it charging okay?

[stinkwheel]

As above, some simple tests with a multimeter means you won't be replacing parts unecessarily.

Is the resting voltage of the battery over 12v? If not, charge it and check again. If it won't hold over 12V, it needs replacing.

When you run the engine, is the voltage across the battery over 12V rising to over 13 but less than 15 as revs increase? If not, the charging system is suspect and more testing is required to find the problem.

[singleminded]

My Bullet (iron engine, 2003) developed similar problems some time ago. The battery was fine so I started going through all the connections. When viewing the bottom of the ammeter from underneath the casquette, I found that both terminals were covered in green corrosion.
I removed the nuts and wires and cleaned everything thoroughly and re-made the connections. I then smothered them in silicone grease to keep any moisture out.
The result was the bike ran perfectly even when the indicators etc were used.
Also, the deflection of the needle on the ammeter increased when indicating a charge or discharge - doubtless because of the better connections.