Valve Guide Material?

[liveaboard]

The thread started is 2003; someone was trying to work on an Indian Royal Enfield motorcycle.
The root of the problem is obvious to anyone familiar with those so called motorcycles...
I always just say NO to working on Enfields.

Fume, hiss, sputter, cough, shudder, choke...

[Bill Shields]

agreed.....

[liveaboard]

When I saw a reply to this, I was suddenly afraid I might have stepped on someone's toes.
Some people do like them.
There's no accounting for taste.

[John Evans]

WELL !!! I take exception to that !! LOL British RE's were not that bad ,owned several and worked on more. They were not better or worse than BSA -Triumph etc. in their time . I've owned dang near one of anything made in England from the 40s to the 70s. Ariel to Vincent. One of the few I missed were the Sunbeam S-7,S-8 parallel shaft drive twins. As far as Indian RE's the new ones have fuel injection OH the HORROR of it !!! Give me a leakly Amal at least I can fix them.

[liveaboard]

In their time, the UK built ones, perhaps.

I lived in India through the 70's 80's, +90's; the government at the time didn't allow any new models of any motor vehicle, and imports were strictly controlled too.
There were 3 models of motorcycle for the whole country; each worse than the other. With no competition and low customer expectations, build quality was low.
The main problem was that those things were designed in the 50's. Overweight and underpowered to the extreme. Poor brakes, suspension useless.
The Enfeild 350 leaked oil from the forks while still in the showroom. They claimed 12hp, and weighed nearly 200 lbs.
The frame would have been ok for a moped. If you jumped a speed bump on an Enfeild, it would bend on landing [true story].
In that place at that time it was what there was, and people bought them and rode them.
What I never understood was the cult following they had. My friends kept insisting they were the greatest thing ever made.

Around 1981, I managed to import a 1977 Kawasaki 400D, a quite unremarkable motorcycle in its day.
It was twice as fast as an Enfeild, weighed less, and stopped in half the distance. It didn't even use more fuel while it did that.
I rode it hard for 25 years and it was still in good running condition when I left there.
Ok, I did some work on it through the years.

I will say one thing for old low compression long stroke singles; they sound great.

[John Hasler]

liveaboard writes:
"The main problem was that those things were designed in the 50's."

Sounds more like they were poorrly designed, in the 50's. No motorcycles, but most US made stuff I've used and/or repaired that was designed in the 50's was well designed. Even the cheap, flimsy stuff (mostly didn't survive, of course) was often well designed for the price point.

[John Evans]

My 500cc RE Woodsman was an enduro style bike ie with lights etc. I fixed it up as a restore/rider not to fancy. I did take it out off road several times and it worked well handling wise. This was in the late 70s and just before the Jap long travel suspension bikes started showing up. BIL had one of the first XL350 ? Honda's and that was not a big improvement ! Honda weighted dang near as much and was not any faster 20 + years newer. My personal dirt bike was a 441 BSA Victor that was moded with B-50 forks ,Koni shocks and engine top end had bigger valves and some port work. Bike had been used before I got it as a short track racer. Best dirt bike I ever rode for deep sand in washes .

[liveaboard]

This is my Yamaha RD350 that I modified into an enduro bike around year 2000.
2 cylinder 2-stroke, HP unknown but it went ok.
Tank is handmade fiberglass, expansion chambers fabricated to suit, XT 500 rear shocks and xt550 front end gave it over 12" ground clearance.
It did loose sand, climbed stairs, and could beat anything on the road in that part of India, except my other bike.

Enfield! hahahahahahahahahaha! Eat my oily exhaust.

I had to stop going up some stairs because people complained I was breaking the lips off the steps.
One neighbor kept trying to block the track in front of his place; what fun I had! over, through, yeehaw.

I drove up hills and rode ridges where only goat herders and moonshiners went. freaked them all out.
From up on top of those ridges, I suddenly was able to see the geography of the lava flows that created the western ghats that I'd read about but never really got before. The ridges that divided our villages were iron rich lava flows 40,000,000 years old.

Hopped through dry rice fields. Explored old irrigation channels that were always there but I'd never seen. I asked locals but no one knew their origin.

In mud; not so good. I sank a couple of times.

It had good sound for a 2-stroke. Almost throaty.

Just before I left India for the last time, new road rules came in banning modified vehicles for road use [like Europe] and the bike became difficult to use.
I only crashed a few times. Miraculous really.

[Bill Shields]

Still miss my Norton atlas

[rrnut-2]

I miss my Triumph Trident.

[Bill Shields]

Had one...do not miss it at all...but then I was not willing to spend time fiddling with it to make it run