Thank you Mr Waller, very well explained and easy to understand, it really helps to have the engine itself on the bench to assist you in pointing out exactly how the lubrication system works. I don't expect to get an apology from certain parties but I suppose that's life. Once again many thanks for this RE Bullet bike build which is in my opinion your best yet.
If you feel I owe you an apology, you have it because while I take great care to avoid making anything but impersonal, technical comments, I'm also aware that meaning can be lost through the medium of the written word. A direct and repeated contradiction to something you firmly believe to be correct can be taken as a personal insult. No such insult was or has been intended and none of my comments should be read as such. I'm sorry that the discussion appeared to become so heated that Mr Waller felt he had to make another video. It is however, highly informative and has most certainly not been a waste of his time. Nothing that has been said here contradicts what I have posted previously. Under normal circumstances, all the oil is fed to the rockers and returns via the timing chest (as per Sindals diagram, which I believe in turn has been reproduced from an official RE service manual) The pressure relief valve only opens and bypasses the rocker feed at around 30psi (as per Allan Hitchcocks article). Reversing the pressure relief valve as you previously described means it will potentially stay closed and stop oil being fed to the rockers entirely when the oil pressure is low. Oil pressure in bullets can drop so low it doesn't register on a gauge when they are working hard and the oil is hot (there is still a sufficiency of flow, just not at pressure). This is the reason I have been labouring the point because while reversing that valve may well have worked for you, it is not how the bike was designed to work and such a modification has the potential to cause oil starvation to the rockers. In the interests of not starting any further argument, can we agree that people should carefully research what they are doing, perhaps with reference to a recognised expert in the marque (Hitchcocks Motorcycles are generally very helpful in this regard, especially if you are a regular customer), before interfering with or modifying their oil circulation system?
@@twostroke350 Ok, apology accepted but only because you are gracious enough to offer an apology. However reading your comments you still have not grasped the function of the Reddich Bullet lubrication system, almost all the comments you have made in this post are still wrong. I'm not going to argue the points any more with you because I feel that I'm wasting my time but let me say this, the spreading of wrongful information is causing other Reddich Bullet owners potential harm, some of these people come to and watch videos like this to learn information to help then overcome their engine issues and the information they take away from here needs to be correct and your information is not correct.
Thank you Michael, explained like a real teacher! As it happens my 2005 500 Bullet sixty -5 does not have the ball valve at the point where the rocker feed pipe exits the crankcase however that doesn't matter a bugger to your build as you said just look at the engine you are working on! Oh and well done in your attempt to pour oil on certain troubled waters but things like this are well out of your control so don't worry about it. Cheers Dave
Thanks Mike, well explained, love your just concentrate on the engine you're working on comment, well said. Looking forwards to the next exciting episode.
Just working through your back catalogue, some very interesting stuff. Sad to see you can't get a proper " bottle o' dog" but at least you've got a fake one to go with it. enjoying them immensely. Thanks for sharing. Alsithi.
Very good explanation. Thanks for taking the effort Michael. BTW, it is far beyond my understanding, how people could get touchy by discussing about something like a lubrication system.
One more thing Mr Waller, would you be kind enough to confirm in the next episode of this Bullet build series that if the sprung ball valve that controls oil pressure to the rockers is assemble back to front in error, ie. the ball is located in the hole at the end of the valve with the spring pressing the ball into the end hole then this will effectively seal the valve and force all the scavenge oil to the rockers which in the case of my own Bullet was the cause of the worm gears being overloaded and stripping. The reason I want to broadcast this point is that when I went to the RE dealer Deeprose of Catford back in the day and purchased a new valve and noticed it was wrong only then to find that all 7 new valves in the bin were assembled the wrong way round too and so are in effect ticking time bombs for future Bullet owners should they be unfortunate enough to purchase one of these faulty valves. If you would be kind enough to help make this issue more widely known it might cause some individual in the future to check that new valve he's just about to install is assembled correctly. Many thanks again.
As I mentioned being out of sync with the videos. I was just recording episode 19 today and I showed the pressure relief and pointed out, ball in first then the spring i.e. ball at the bottom when viewed from the open end.
@@BritanniaMotorcycles Thanks, on my old Bullet back in 1978 the spring was in first and the ball in last, all the new valves at the dealer were the same, how many bikes were affected I wonder, the loss of the oil pumps while riding could easily lead to a blown engine as there would be little warning of the problem until the inevitable seizure/bang/clatter oily foot
I have a couple of questions, in the last video when you dismantled the pump in the timing case where the rocking pump elements sat there was 4 drillings, does this mean the "pistons" in the rocking elements are "double acting" and also except for the oil returned via the pressure relief valve is it pumped back too the internal tank or does it "pool" in the timing cover until it's "thrown" up into the trough by the timing cover idler gears?
To the last part of the question both. The majority is sent straight to the tank, the rocker feed builds up to a level in the timing chest to keep things lubricated and the excess goes down the hole behind the idler gears. To be honest I am not exactly sure how the pumps work, I suppose I should look into it but my only concern is that they do. I know that there is a diagram in the Bullet handbook so I might copy that and put it in the next video.
Ah, so today i checkd my '94 bullet 500 for wet sumping (it uses a LOT of oil despite general overhaul) and the front nut has a filter, because via this filter the oil is scavenged form the sump up to the oil tank again? Doesn't it mean the nut, just like the one from the quill, as to be fastened in EXACT the position the holes aligne? My bullet doesn't seem to have the pressure relif valve? Okay, no wet sumping, i have to look further..
Sorry Danny but I haven't even seen one. I have been tucked away in the country for several years and even before that I was completely out of touch with regards to road bikes. From people whose opinions I value I have heard only good reports though.
I've never worked on a Madras built Bullet engine Peter so I have only common sense to guide me regarding how the scavenge system is configured, you say that these engine do not have a relief valve on the rocker feed but my 'common sense' tells me that there must be some system on the scavenge return that is designed to maintain a head of (lowish) oil pressure over the rockers but returns any surplus oil volume in the scavenge return to the tank through a hidden drilling like on the Reddich built Bullets. Remember that the exact same argument was used on the Reddich engines in the comments in the previous episode and Mr Waller has kindly proved that idea to be an error that appears to have been started years ago by this Pete Snydell character, anyway all is now good with another wrong righted.
@@patrickcol thats the exact same claim certain parties here made about the Reddich built engines and they were stone cold wrong so I'm keeping an open mind about it
@@rotax636nut5 Yes, common sense would say there must be a pressure relief valve but I assure you there is not. I've had quite a few Madras engines to bits and I know. I suppose the thinking is that if the feed pump can manage without one then the scavenge side can as well. Certainly there is plenty of capacity in the rocker feed pipes to carry all the oil and it helps to keep the top end cool. A common test for oil circulation on these engines is to loosen a rocker banjo bold - the oil fairly spurts out! Hitchcocks supply a kit to introduce a relief valve into the rocker feed pipe and in this case it returns the surplus via a modified push rod cover. If a relief valve was built in they wouldn't bother producing them (and they state the fact that there is no valve on the later Madras engines) accessories.hitchcocksmotorcycles.com/Pressure-Relief-Valve?&model=
@@rotax636nut5 I suspect it's because most people are familiar with the Indian Enfields. I've had one Redditch and two Indian and currently have a 500. They're very close but the lack of the external oil-pressure valve is a distinguishing feature.
Duh! I might sound stupid, but how do the main bearings get lubricated as the engine is dry sump and I don't see any oil line leading to them? The diagram doesn't even show them. Thank you for your explanations Michael.
Like the cylinder walls the bearings get their oil from the splash feed when the oil is forced out of the big end. Ball and roller bearings can manage on a very small oil feed, it is really only plain bearings that need to have a pressurised film of oil between the two surfaces.
Good one Michael, as usual, but could you confirm in a future episode the exact function of the shape of the casing around the two idler gears? No rush LOL.
DiversionBob - More to that, you said during assembly that you had been told (?) that the two unused idlers had to be installed to meet some mysterious lubrication function. Is that still true?
@@noellwilson1273 I did not say that they HAD to be installed, but I think there is a good chance that in a set of cases with no bypass valve so all of the oil from the scavenge pump is going to the rockers then drains down into the timing chest that the gear on the crankshaft passes oil to the two camshaft gears then to the idler gears which act as a pump to force the oil thru the hole to the right of the mesh point of the idler gears back into the oil reservoir. I am not saying this is gospel, just putting it forward as a theory. My original comments were made to Michael about the engine cases he was working with, but some other people on here have read more in to my comments than I said.
@@diversionbob8482 I queried the need for the two idler pinion gears to pump oil in the first instance because my Indian home market, year 2004 350 has TCI ignition (and therefore has no distributor) and never had them fitted at the factory. Being a later bike, it also came out of the factory without a pressure relief valve in the scavenge oil line. I have since fitted an aftermarket PRV, as advertised in the Hitchcocks catalogue.
Thank you Mr Waller, very well explained and easy to understand, it really helps to have the engine itself on the bench to assist you in pointing out exactly how the lubrication system works. I don't expect to get an apology from certain parties but I suppose that's life. Once again many thanks for this RE Bullet bike build which is in my opinion your best yet.
If you feel I owe you an apology, you have it because while I take great care to avoid making anything but impersonal, technical comments, I'm also aware that meaning can be lost through the medium of the written word. A direct and repeated contradiction to something you firmly believe to be correct can be taken as a personal insult. No such insult was or has been intended and none of my comments should be read as such.
I'm sorry that the discussion appeared to become so heated that Mr Waller felt he had to make another video. It is however, highly informative and has most certainly not been a waste of his time.
Nothing that has been said here contradicts what I have posted previously. Under normal circumstances, all the oil is fed to the rockers and returns via the timing chest (as per Sindals diagram, which I believe in turn has been reproduced from an official RE service manual) The pressure relief valve only opens and bypasses the rocker feed at around 30psi (as per Allan Hitchcocks article). Reversing the pressure relief valve as you previously described means it will potentially stay closed and stop oil being fed to the rockers entirely when the oil pressure is low.
Oil pressure in bullets can drop so low it doesn't register on a gauge when they are working hard and the oil is hot (there is still a sufficiency of flow, just not at pressure). This is the reason I have been labouring the point because while reversing that valve may well have worked for you, it is not how the bike was designed to work and such a modification has the potential to cause oil starvation to the rockers.
In the interests of not starting any further argument, can we agree that people should carefully research what they are doing, perhaps with reference to a recognised expert in the marque (Hitchcocks Motorcycles are generally very helpful in this regard, especially if you are a regular customer), before interfering with or modifying their oil circulation system?
@@twostroke350 Ok, apology accepted but only because you are gracious enough to offer an apology. However reading your comments you still have not grasped the function of the Reddich Bullet lubrication system, almost all the comments you have made in this post are still wrong. I'm not going to argue the points any more with you because I feel that I'm wasting my time but let me say this, the spreading of wrongful information is causing other Reddich Bullet owners potential harm, some of these people come to and watch videos like this to learn information to help then overcome their engine issues and the information they take away from here needs to be correct and your information is not correct.
You explain the system very well Michael!
Thank you Michael, explained like a real teacher! As it happens my 2005 500 Bullet sixty -5 does not have the ball valve at the point where the rocker feed pipe exits the crankcase however that doesn't matter a bugger to your build as you said just look at the engine you are working on! Oh and well done in your attempt to pour oil on certain troubled waters but things like this are well out of your control so don't worry about it. Cheers Dave
Very well illustrated, Thank you Sir 😊
Thanks Mike, well explained, love your just concentrate on the engine you're working on comment, well said. Looking forwards to the next exciting episode.
Just working through your back catalogue, some very interesting stuff. Sad to see you can't get a proper " bottle o' dog" but at least you've got a fake one to go with it. enjoying them immensely. Thanks for sharing. Alsithi.
I have moved on to Speckled Hen.
Thank you Michael for a very clear explanation. I always wondered why older bike engines seemed to feed their rockers off the scavenge line.
Good explanation Michael. Thank you.
Very good explanation. Thanks for taking the effort Michael. BTW, it is far beyond my understanding, how people could get touchy by discussing about something like a lubrication system.
first class
Awesome
Thank you.
One more thing Mr Waller, would you be kind enough to confirm in the next episode of this Bullet build series that if the sprung ball valve that controls oil pressure to the rockers is assemble back to front in error, ie. the ball is located in the hole at the end of the valve with the spring pressing the ball into the end hole then this will effectively seal the valve and force all the scavenge oil to the rockers which in the case of my own Bullet was the cause of the worm gears being overloaded and stripping. The reason I want to broadcast this point is that when I went to the RE dealer Deeprose of Catford back in the day and purchased a new valve and noticed it was wrong only then to find that all 7 new valves in the bin were assembled the wrong way round too and so are in effect ticking time bombs for future Bullet owners should they be unfortunate enough to purchase one of these faulty valves. If you would be kind enough to help make this issue more widely known it might cause some individual in the future to check that new valve he's just about to install is assembled correctly. Many thanks again.
As I mentioned being out of sync with the videos. I was just recording episode 19 today and I showed the pressure relief and pointed out, ball in first then the spring i.e. ball at the bottom when viewed from the open end.
@@BritanniaMotorcycles Thanks, on my old Bullet back in 1978 the spring was in first and the ball in last, all the new valves at the dealer were the same, how many bikes were affected I wonder, the loss of the oil pumps while riding could easily lead to a blown engine as there would be little warning of the problem until the inevitable seizure/bang/clatter oily foot
I have a couple of questions, in the last video when you dismantled the pump in the timing case where the rocking pump elements sat there was 4 drillings, does this mean the "pistons" in the rocking elements are "double acting" and also except for the oil returned via the pressure relief valve is it pumped back too the internal tank or does it "pool" in the timing cover until it's "thrown" up into the trough by the timing cover idler gears?
To the last part of the question both. The majority is sent straight to the tank, the rocker feed builds up to a level in the timing chest to keep things lubricated and the excess goes down the hole behind the idler gears. To be honest I am not exactly sure how the pumps work, I suppose I should look into it but my only concern is that they do. I know that there is a diagram in the Bullet handbook so I might copy that and put it in the next video.
Ah, so today i checkd my '94 bullet 500 for wet sumping (it uses a LOT of oil despite general overhaul) and the front nut has a filter, because via this filter the oil is scavenged form the sump up to the oil tank again? Doesn't it mean the nut, just like the one from the quill, as to be fastened in EXACT the position the holes aligne?
My bullet doesn't seem to have the pressure relif valve?
Okay, no wet sumping, i have to look further..
Do you have an opinion on the indian mfg royal enfield Himalayan?
Sorry Danny but I haven't even seen one. I have been tucked away in the country for several years and even before that I was completely out of touch with regards to road bikes. From people whose opinions I value I have heard only good reports though.
I think the confusion arises from the Madras engines, at least the later ones, not having the relief valves so all the oil goes to the rockers.
I've never worked on a Madras built Bullet engine Peter so I have only common sense to guide me regarding how the scavenge system is configured, you say that these engine do not have a relief valve on the rocker feed but my 'common sense' tells me that there must be some system on the scavenge return that is designed to maintain a head of (lowish) oil pressure over the rockers but returns any surplus oil volume in the scavenge return to the tank through a hidden drilling like on the Reddich built Bullets. Remember that the exact same argument was used on the Reddich engines in the comments in the previous episode and Mr Waller has kindly proved that idea to be an error that appears to have been started years ago by this Pete Snydell character, anyway all is now good with another wrong righted.
@@rotax636nut5 The Indian Enfields just send all of the oil back up to the rockers. There is no pressure-relief valve.
@@patrickcol thats the exact same claim certain parties here made about the Reddich built engines and they were stone cold wrong so I'm keeping an open mind about it
@@rotax636nut5 Yes, common sense would say there must be a pressure relief valve but I assure you there is not.
I've had quite a few Madras engines to bits and I know.
I suppose the thinking is that if the feed pump can manage without one then the scavenge side can as well. Certainly there is plenty of capacity in the rocker feed pipes to carry all the oil and it helps to keep the top end cool.
A common test for oil circulation on these engines is to loosen a rocker banjo bold - the oil fairly spurts out!
Hitchcocks supply a kit to introduce a relief valve into the rocker feed pipe and in this case it returns the surplus via a modified push rod cover. If a relief valve was built in they wouldn't bother producing them (and they state the fact that there is no valve on the later Madras engines)
accessories.hitchcocksmotorcycles.com/Pressure-Relief-Valve?&model=
@@rotax636nut5 I suspect it's because most people are familiar with the Indian Enfields. I've had one Redditch and two Indian and currently have a 500. They're very close but the lack of the external oil-pressure valve is a distinguishing feature.
Duh! I might sound stupid, but how do the main bearings get lubricated as the engine is dry sump and I don't see any oil line leading to them? The diagram doesn't even show them. Thank you for your explanations Michael.
Like the cylinder walls the bearings get their oil from the splash feed when the oil is forced out of the big end. Ball and roller bearings can manage on a very small oil feed, it is really only plain bearings that need to have a pressurised film of oil between the two surfaces.
Michael Waller I see, that makes a lot of sense; thank you for your answer.
I have 1959 GE engine bullet.
Tec tips goodo
Good one Michael, as usual, but could you confirm in a future episode the exact function of the shape of the casing around the two idler gears? No rush LOL.
DiversionBob - More to that, you said during assembly that you had been told (?) that the two unused idlers had to be installed to meet some mysterious lubrication function. Is that still true?
@@noellwilson1273 I did not say that they HAD to be installed, but I think there is a good chance that in a set of cases with no bypass valve so all of the oil from the scavenge pump is going to the rockers then drains down into the timing chest that the gear on the crankshaft passes oil to the two camshaft gears then to the idler gears which act as a pump to force the oil thru the hole to the right of the mesh point of the idler gears back into the oil reservoir. I am not saying this is gospel, just putting it forward as a theory. My original comments were made to Michael about the engine cases he was working with, but some other people on here have read more in to my comments than I said.
@@diversionbob8482 all change now then Divi Bob, you forget that we can all go back and see exactly what you said
@@diversionbob8482 I queried the need for the two idler pinion gears to pump oil in the first instance because my Indian home market, year 2004 350 has TCI ignition (and therefore has no distributor) and never had them fitted at the factory. Being a later bike, it also came out of the factory without a pressure relief valve in the scavenge oil line. I have since fitted an aftermarket PRV, as advertised in the Hitchcocks catalogue.
@@rotax636nut5 go back and check, then let me know what's changed.
G