Tag: Royal Enfield Baja

Enfield Recall and First Service Quotes

Things happen, I guess, and one of the things that’s happened to me lately is my new Royal Enfield 650 Interceptor was recalled.  As recalls go, it’s not that serious, I suppose.  It has to do with brake caliper corrosion, and from what I’ve read, it might be related to road salt as used in the snowy parts of our country.  Ain’t no snow in So Cal unless you get way up in the mountains, and we don’t use road salt.  Eh, I don’t know…if all the dealer is going to do is look at it and tell me it’s not corroded, hell, I can do that.  Maybe they’re replacing all of them.   I gotta look into this more.  I have had bad experiences on product recalls (including with my Henry 45 70 rifle), so unless the concern is real, I tend not to act on these things.

I thought that as long as I was going to be making an appointment to have the brake calipers checked out, I might as well go ahead and schedule the first maintenance.  Whoa, was that ever educational.  The first service is basically a valve adjustment, an oil and filter change, tightening the chain, checking the nuts and bolts for tightness, etc.  You know, basic stuff.

I started by calling the dealer closest to me (Southern California Royal Enfield), and they quoted $580 for the service.  Wow.  There’s no shims and buckets in the valve adjustment (it’s just threaded locknuts, like on the CSC bikes or a Moto Guzzi), so the valve adjustment should go pretty quickly.   $580. Wow, that’s steep, I thought.  Especially for a service that I doubt would take even two hours.  So I called Pro-Italia over in Glendale.  They came in at $110 less than the boys in Brea ($470 for the first service, after they first told me it was $440, then $450, and then finally when I asked if they were sure about the number, the kid looked it up and told me it was $470).  Wow, that’s quite a swing, and I’m not too sure about Glendale’s competence.   They’re the same boys who sent Gresh and me down to Baja on a Bullet with nearly no oil, a rusty chain, and a battery that died on Day 3 (you can read about that here).

Then I got interested in how much price variation for the same service I could find, so I called the Royal Enfield dealer in San Diego (Rocket Motorcycles).  They won the prize for the lowest quote at $368.55, which almost seemed sort of reasonable to me.  San Diego is 120 miles south of here, though, so it’s really a nonstarter for me.  I thought I would try one more, so I called the Royal Enfield dealer in San Jose, and not surprisingly, they got top billing at $600.  Hey, those Bay Area and Silicon Valley entrepreneurial types are rolling in dough.

If I lived in San Diego, I’d think about heading over there, but I’m not going to do that.  I’m the guy that wrote most of the service manuals for CSC (with a lot of the “how to” demonstrated and explained by Gerry Edwards), and the Royal Enfield service manual is a free download.

The biggest part of the first service is adjusting the valves, and I doubt that would take more than an hour.  I can change the oil and the filter, and I can tighten and lube a chain.  I know which way I’m going on this.  I may bring the Enfield in for the caliper recall because that’s a freebie.  As for the first service, I’ll pick up the synthetic oil and a filter, do the valve adjustment and the rest, and keep that $368, or $470, or $580, or $600 where it belongs:  In my pocket.

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Read the entire Enfield Baja trials (for both the Bullet and the Interceptor) here!

The Plucky Bullet

Berk was feeling pretty frisky about the Bullet. We had cleaned up a corroded spark plug cap and the big 500cc single was running well.

“You stay on the 650, I like this Bullet and want to try it now that it’s running right.” It took no arm twisting to get me back in the Royal Enfield 650 twin’s seat. I feel supremely comfortable on that bike and you will too if your spine has also recently collapsed from lifting 36,000 pounds of concrete last month. The thing suits my wee, 5-foot 6-inch frame perfectly. Bigger guys may fit the 650 also but I have no way of knowing that sort of shin surgery.

Meanwhile, Berk was was like Lawrence of Suburbia burbling along Baja’s Highway 1 with his Eton tie fluttering in the Bullet’s considerable draft. The guy was having way too much fun racing rag-winged biplanes and organizing Gurkhas. The big 500 single was in top form, pulling steadily and hitting every beat right on time. It got to the point that I thought I was missing out on something good. Like Tom Sawyer painting that picket fence.

And then the battery died. Flat dead, like nowheresville, man.

I recently bought a bunch of those lithium engine starter batteries, the ones about the size of a pack of cigarettes that will jump start an aircraft carrier. I whipped the thing out and Berk was impressed at how the Bullet jumped. Wait…that doesn’t sound right…

Anyway, once running the Bullet stayed running and we made it to Guerrero Negro where we located a slightly-used-but-still-holding-a-charge battery. The poles on the used battery were reversed and the case was a little bigger than the stock battery so we had to do a bit of ham-fisted metal rearranging to get the battery to fit inside the Bullet’s box. It’s not pretty but the bike starts fine now. The stock battery side cover won’t fit over the larger battery and we debated tossing it into the weeds but decided Royal Enfield wouldn’t find it so funny. We buried that part in our luggage.

With wires dangling and the larger battery hanging out the left side of the frame our Bullet is looking more like a BMW adventure bike everyday. If we wrapped 75 feet of 3/4 inch electrical conduit around the Bullet you’d swear it was a GS1200. Despite the troubles the thing is growing on us. Really, none of the faults are due to Royal Enfield assemblies.

In fact, each time we get the Bullet back on the road I like the thing better. It’s plucky, it’s a never-say-die-motorcycle in a British stiff upper lip, we keep our side of Gibraltar’s door knob polished, way. You know what I mean?

That’s it for now. Tomorrow we are going to see the whales, which in Spanish translates to “I’m going to ruin another expensive camera on a rickety boat out in the ocean.”

Snapshot!

So far I’m not meshing well with the 500cc Royal Enfield Bullet. I keep stalling the thing at stops and unless its pulling under load it hits and misses like a two stroke. Other times it runs flawlessly. Berk has ridden the thing and says it’s fine and that I don’t know how to ride a heavy flywheel, old fashioned motorcycle. Being the senior member of the Royal Enfield tour team he should know. Although, in my defense he stalled it twice. Berk is going to ride the 500cc single all day tomorrow and we will see if it’s me or the motorcycle.

The Bullet runs great on the highway, though, loping along at an easy 70 miles per hour. There is a bit of vibration but it seems like the faster you go the smoother it gets. I wound it up to 80-85 and it was remarkably smooth for an engine designed back when fuel was sold in one gallon tin cans at hardware stores.

Actually, that’s not true. This 500cc single is quite a bit different from the old 1950s Enfields. It’s unit construction for one. (Transmission and engine all in one case.)  It’s fuel injected and starts at the push of a button. Still, the Bullet wouldn’t raise an eyebrow if it was sent back in time to the Eisenhower era.

The Bullet gets astronomical gas mileage. Our freeway run from Los Angeles to San Diego netted 75 miles per gallon and I wasn’t sparing the throttle. On long uphill grades I’d whack her open in 5th gear and the Bullet would slowly gain speed, passing semi trucks like they were semi trucks.

I’ve only ridden the new 650cc twin around Tecate but what a sweet machine. It revs in a peppy, mouth-full-of-pop-rocks sort of way, the transmission is slick as a Yamaha’s and the steering is light. It lifts off the side stand easily and comes with a center stand. Mechanically, this motorcycle works.

I love the thing. I haven’t stared at it too long but I don’t see any glaring faults in the fit or finish. It fires up so fast and runs so smooth. The seat is long and seems comfortable, it’s almost like a Brat Bike seat except good-looking. The cropped front and rear fenders are adorable yet tough. How is that possible? Clutch pull is light and the action is perfect. Foot pegs are slightly back, the bars place you in a slight forward lean. The Royal Enfield 650 is a shiny orange piece of Moto-confection. If I wasn’t such a cheapskate I’d run out and buy one of the things.

Whoa…what am I saying? Buy a new motorcycle? I’m getting way over my head with this 650, let’s burn a few thousand miles into the odometer and see if I’m still madly in love with the Royal Enfield twin.

We’re Off!

Joe Gresh arrived here at ExNotes Central late last night (after driving 850 miles in a single day), and it was good to see old Arjiu again (that’s Joe’s Chinese name, I’m Dajiu, and you can read all about how we picked up those names in Riding China).

We’re going to be on the road as you read this, and you can follow our adventure right here on the ExNotes blog.  If you missed the first few preparatory Enfield posts, here they are:

The Bullet hits home!
18 again!
BajaBound on Royal Enfield!

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