This 1969 Royal Enfield was brought to us to repair the kick-starter. We diagnosed the problem as a worn kicker gear and advised the customer of our findings.
With the new kicker gear we were able to solve the kick-starter issue and attempted to start the motorcycle. After having no such luck, we started to check the obvious suspects such as fuel and spark. We checked the spark by removing the spark plug and grounding it to the cylinder. Next, we kicked the machine to observe if it had spark. Our findings confirmed that we had good spark so we then began looking at the carburetor to ensure that we had fuel. We removed the float bowl and checked to see if the jets were clear, which they were.
Sometimes to mimic a choke we will have one of us place our hands over the back of the carburetor while the other kicks. In doing so, we felt that there was an insufficient amount of suction through the carburetor. That provided us with an indicator that we needed to check the valves.
After doing so, our suspicions were confirmed with loose valves and a marginally bent push-rod. Knowing we needed to replace the bent push-rod, we adjusted the valves properly and resumed attempting to start the motorcycle in the interim to verify that those were the only issues. Without much trouble we were able to get the motorcycle running for a short period of time.
After it was initially running, we took a second look at the valves as it would not re-start. Unexpectedly, we discovered that the valves were again loose- an occurrence that we would say is incredibly uncommon. We now knew that we needed to identify what was causing the valves to become loose in the first place.
We removed the valve cover and discovered the true source of the problem, rather than just the symptom. There was a missing bolt, a stripped bolt, and two loose bolts. After finding these, we removed the cylinder head to repair the threads where the stripped and missing bolts were.
We’re now waiting on replacement bolts, gaskets, and the push-rod to come in to complete the job. While parts are still available for this bike, they aren’t readily or widespread. Once the parts come in we feel confident that this beauty will be a viable piece that will return to the road once more!
