My Royal Enfield won't start: Now what?
Relax. I mean that literally: get comfortable. Get your blood pressure down. Take off your helmet and jacket. Stretch. Have a cup of coffee. You want to approach the motorcycle with a fresh eye. Remember, the motorcycle is watching. You want it know you are the master.
Your first step should be to turn off the ignition and fuel tap choke and swing the kickstarter three or more times to clear the engine. Turn up the idle screw (clockwise as you face it) half a turn. That gives the motor a bit of extra throttle as it starts but not enough to flood it. You can turn the screw back down after the motor starts.
Try starting the motor without the choke. If that doesn't work, try with the choke. Still nothing? Have a sip of coffee and then, in a relaxed mood, take things step-by-step.
You only need three things to start a Royal Enfield: gas, compression and ignition. An empty gas tank is the easiest thing to rule out, so do that first. In Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance author Robert M. Pirsig described how a motorcycle trip came to a sad end. How? Because he refused to believe the bike was simply out of gas. If the tank has gas, check for a pinched gas line. All OK? Good.
Check for compression. Swing the kickstarter through its arc with the ignition off. If it comes to a point past which it is difficult to move the kickstart lever, compression is fine.
If not, compression is escaping. It can only get out of the cylinder three ways. It can go through the valves if they are too tight or a bit of carbon is holding one open. Swinging the kickstarter repeatedly should clear any carbon and the valves will only be too tight if you adjusted them last night and left them set wrong. They don't get tight on their own.
Compression can escape through the decompressor. Check that the cable that operates it isn't binding (perhaps when the handlebars turn) , opening the decompressor.
Finally, compression can escape past the piston rings. Remove the spark plug, put a dollop of oil in through the hole, replace the plug and see if compression returns. It should.
Now check for ignition. For this you need electricity. A Bullet with a dead battery will not start. Does the horn sound loudly? If so, the battery is good enough.
Set the Kill Switch to "run" and the ignition to "on" and swing the kickstarter. Is the needle on the amp meter swinging to the left and back to center as you do this? If so go on to the next step. If not, there is a bad connection somewhere. If that's the case you'll have to track it down and you might not be going riding today. Before you give up, reach into the back of the casquette and wiggle the wiring looms in there. This once brought the Bullet back to life for me.
If the amp meter is swinging normally, pull the spark plug and replace it with a new plug even if the old one looks OK. You only have one spark plug in a Bullet, so that one plug is 100 per cent of your ignition system inside the cylinder. You want it to be perfect. You do have a spare spark plug, right?
Remove the points cover and, with the ignition and Kill Switch "on" use a screwdriver to gently pry the points apart. If they spark you're good, but turn off the ignition and use a business card or other flat cardboard to clean the contact surfaces.
Your motorcycle will start on the very next try. If not, feel free to say anything you want about me in a comment here.
