ROYAL ENFIELD SUPER METEOR
Robert Murdoch bought an extra-special Enfield big twin to take on his Continental travels. Before they could set off, a few things needed fettling…
Robert Murdoch bought an extra-special Enfield big twin to take on his Continental travels. Before they could set off, a few things needed fettling…
My first choice of touring bike is a Royal Enfield 700 Super Meteor called Olive. She didn’t acquire this nomination through my own sentimental attachment, but was named by Bill Soltau, the previous owner. He added so much of his own ingenuity to the bike that she deserves to keep this special recognition.
Not long after moving to France in 2002, I’d asked in the club magazine if there were any other members in the region who fancied a ride out. Bill replied, and would be touring the area with a small posse of riders the following spring. Would I like to meet up with them? We met and I spent an enjoyable couple of days riding through the mountains in good company. My most memorable companion was Bill and his rather special green Royal Enfield twin, fitted with a homemade electric starter.
In the 1990s Bill grafted a Honda CB450 electric starter motor to a Meteor Minor 500 twin, hoping to retire his arthritic right leg from kickstarting duties. The operation was a remarkable success, providing a conversation piece at classic events. Happy with his prototype but desiring more power for touring, Bill took on the rebuild of a Super Meteor 700, the bigger sibling of the 500. With all but the crank throw common to the two engines, another Honda electric starter could be installed using the same home-made adaptation as before. The choice of starter motor was down to convenience rather than design; a fellow VMCC member raced Honda Black Bombers and had no need for such heavy extras. Bill calculated that the drive ratio of the two standard Honda sprockets should be able to spin a larger 700 motor if it retained the soft 7:1 pistons. Needless to say, he was right.
Over the years Bill and I kept in touch, occasionally meeting at events, and all the while Olive kept clocking up the miles on expeditions, time trials and rallies without any fuss or drama. Meanwhile, the vibration, oil leaks and departing fasteners of my own touring bike – another British twin which shall remain nameless – were getting me down. I wanted a lower maintenance machine. One day I plucked up courage and wrote a message to Bill. ‘Just in case you should ever think about selling Olive, could you please keep me in mind?’ I’m very glad I did, because Bill was thinking about down-sizing to a smaller, lighter bike, and other admirers were poised to ask the same question.
And so, one bright morning in April, Olive and her new keeper were merrily bendswinging along a perfect French biking road, the old N20/N820, heading north past Cahors towards Rocamadour to meet Bill at his daughter’s home. This snaking rollercoaster across the plateaus and valleys of the Massif Central was the principal route north from
the t south-west until it was bypassed with a new n Auto Route. Overnight it became one of my m favourite rides and, as usual, I had it all to myself. m This was my first long distance ride on my m new bike and a great opportunity to get to know k the ways of the lazy, long-stroke twin.
A complex delivery plan involved some r riding, some haulage and a ferry crossing s several weeks beforehand to transport O Olive the thousand miles from Blackburn to T Toulouse, but it was agreed that an official h handing over ceremony was required. In F France this involves lots of good food and p putting the world to rights, not to mention a s spot of history.
At the age of eleven, Bill left his home c country of Belgium in a bit of a hurry. One m morning in May 1940 he awoke to see dive b bombers destroying Antwerp’s airfield. With h his English father and Belgian mother, he e escaped from the impending disaster to D Dunkirk where they boarded a ship to Dover j just days before the famous evacuation of the B BEF. In his new home in England, Bill became a design engineer, initially in the aircraft i industry then switching (ho ho!) to the e electricity generation industry. His electrical a and mechanical skills are evident in the
model railway locomotives and motorcycles which have occupied most of his spare time for seventy years. Bill competed in the 1950 Land’s End Trial on a Redditch 500 Twin a year before the factory realised its trialing potential. Naturally, it incorporated some of Bill’s own modifications.
Back in the 21st century and on one hot August afternoon, Olive rolled to stop without a clutch or gears, in temperatures which require forward motion in order to remain cool. I knew it was more serious than a broken clutch cable and was lucky to be still on the slip road to the local bypass. I called my personal recovery service and Sheila duly arrived in the Renault Espace with a scaffolding plank and all the seats removed. Back in the workshop I was most surprised to find the gearbox mainshaft in two pieces, snapped cleanly in the middle like a carrot.
Close inspection of the fracture showed tell-tale crystallisation, meaning that fatigue had set in some time before the big break. I suspect that a recent 2000 mile trip to the Netherlands carrying my son and camping equipment may have been the last straw for a tired gearbox which had lived a tough previous life pulling a sidecar. The Super Meteor was launched in 1956, promoted as a very capable chair puller as well as a tourer, and replaced the Meteor 700 which itself evolved from the 1949 500 Twin. Olive was delivered from the Redditch factory to J Furneaux of Aberdeen in April 1959 with sidecar gearing and fittings.
My cyber friends read about my plight and it wasn’t long before a new mainshaft arrived all the way from Holland, still in the original greased paper. The wonders of modern telegraphy brought kindred spirits together to save the day. I had to completely disassemble the primary transmission side of the bike, including all of Bill’s clever electric-starter handiwork, to release the clutch centre from the broken half-shaft and to install the new one. While doing so I took photographs of each stage of disassembly to keep a record for reassembly purposes. These are the pictures that you see here, and the only time I’ve needed to disturb the superb craftsmanship of Bill’s electric start mechanism.
Bill had tackled the problems of brush painting in his usual scientific way by making his own revolving painting jigs. Each handpainted component is turned slowly by an electric motor while the paint dries, just quick enough to confuse potential runs of paint and permitting a generous application. And thick paint bears no brush marks. Clever, eh? The mudguards, tank, toolboxes – everything was slowly turned on the motorised Dexion brackets to give a smooth finish. A pole was rotated between a more powerful geared motor and a slave bearing fixed to a Workmate, holding the frame about its centre of gravity to give smooth rotation and the motor an easy time. Turned like a spit roast, the frame came out with a mirror finish like all other parts. Bill kindly gave me these two jigs, but I’ve yet to try them.
This Super Meteor also boasts a back-up ignition option which is reassuring on long journeys, even though I’ve never needed to use it. If the Boyer ignition box fails, a toggle switch inside the left-hand toolbox activates the original Lucas distributor, which has been cleverly retained. From time to time I flick the switch while the engine is running and test the emergency option for a few miles.
Royal Enfields have notoriously poor respiration which can result in oil leaks. The woefully inadequate brass breather fixed on three screws to the left side crankcase has been directly replaced by Bill’s own design, which has a circular synthetic reed valve managing a ten-fold increase in gas flow in one direction only. It spits a few drops of oil on initial start-up, but then performs its duty so reliably that it goes unnoticed. There are no oil leaks, but oil burn was initially a big issue when I adopted the machine. Following a heavily smoking motorcycle is an unpleasant business and quite unbearable over several days. When the friendly sarcasm from fellow tourists gave way to full frontal complaints of sore throats, I knew it was time to sort out Olive’s high oil consumption with a rebore. Weak resistance from the leaky, standard size pistons was giving the same message, which Bill hadn’t noticed, always preferring to use the electric leg.
While the top end was apart and new + 0.020” pistons were found, I took the opportunity to fit Austin Mini piston rings,
particularly the oil control ring, which has an internal garter spring and is a direct swap with the one-piece original. I’ve applied this mod to several Royal Enfields which share the common 70mm bore, resulting in very satisfactory oil consumption – zero in some cases, now including Olive.
The two-into-one exhaust pipe that you see here is only a couple of years old, but is already showing its poor-quality plating. I had been assured by a popular vendor that it was of decent quality, but the price told me otherwise and this was confirmed when the packaging was removed. Peering down the short right-hand pipe to the intersection, the 1½” pipe ended at a small ragged hole barely big enough to poke a finger through. With the pipe clamped in the soft jaws of the vice, I took a bastard file to it and similar coarse language ensued while I removed metal from the intersection and skin from my knuckles in roughly similar proportions.
Then, when offered to the bike, the hole in the bracket didn’t match the stud on the frame. More filing. To top it all, I can no longer remove the oil filter without first removing the exhaust pipes. Pattern parts: grrrrr. I suspect a copy was made from a copy which was made from a copy. I intend to send the old exhaust pipe, the one which fits, to Peter Weller of PGW Engineering (07518 023911) to make me some top quality stainless steel pipes.
The large 14 amp-hour Yuasa lead acid battery fills the right-hand toolbox. Along with the electric starter, it adds significantly to the 420lb of a standard bike and ironically made this machine just too heavy for its creator. Button starting is very reliable, but the battery must be tip-top to turn over the slightly higher than standard compression pistons. Flat-topped 7:1 pistons were not available, so I had to settle for something closer to 8:1, which gives the starter a hard time when the oil is cold. Fitting a thin compression plate under the cylinders has been added to the list of jobs to do.
To start the 700, I turn on the petrol tap, tickle the Amal Monobloc and slowly depress the kickstart for half a turn to prime the engine, then turn the ignition key in the right-hand toolbox by one click. With whiff of throttle, press the black starter button by my left thumb and… buloop, buloop… vrooom, it stirs into life. The big docile twin is almost as easy to start on the kickstart, rarely needing more than one prod. But who knows? That electric start, so essential for Bill, may also become useful to me in later years.
Clutch operation can be a one finger action thanks to some simple trickery. The lever pivot point has been moved by drilling a new hole closer to the cable nipple. This increases mechanical advantage but shortens the cable movement, making a lever movement all the way to the handlebar necessary to avoid any gear crunch. A nylon nipple-sleeve and Teflon-lined cable minimise friction.
NEXT TIME: Riding the Royal Enfield and a sudden seizure…