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  #1  
Old 8 Aug 2011
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Thumbs up Unit constuction Royal enfields
Does anybody have any experience of the the new Royal Enfields with the unit constuction engines, Any comments would be most welcome.
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Old 9 Aug 2011
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Hi
I am also interested in the unit construction Enfield and often find info from these 2 website forums.

AussieEnfields.com

Royal Enfield Motorcycles - The Official Home of Royal Enfield in the USA
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Old 9 Aug 2011
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The big ends are prone to failure as they are the same assembly used in the old Electra.

Common causes are poor case hardening of the crankpin flaking off
Poor quality steel in the crankpin
timing running too far advanced.
not helped by running the needle bearings directly in the aluminium conrod.
Wrongly machined crankshafts are the main culprit for the incorrect timing, but it can also be the rotor or stator being out of tolerance. There is no easy adjustment without machining.
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Old 9 Aug 2011
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Quote:
Originally Posted by oldbmw View Post
The big ends are prone to failure as they are the same assembly used in the old Electra.

Common causes are poor case hardening of the crankpin flaking off
Poor quality steel in the crankpin
timing running too far advanced.
not helped by running the needle bearings directly in the aluminium conrod.
Wrongly machined crankshafts are the main culprit for the incorrect timing, but it can also be the rotor or stator being out of tolerance. There is no easy adjustment without machining.
Where did you get this information from? From the forums I have read these bikes have received nothing but praise.

These engines are made with the latest CNC (japanese) machinery.
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Old 9 Aug 2011
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Originally Posted by palace15 View Post
Where did you get this information from? From the forums I have read these bikes have received nothing but praise.

These engines are made with the latest CNC (japanese) machinery.
So are the AVL electra. Butthat does not stop them failing.

The information, well it comes from several sources.

Re the bad materials of the crankpin, the case hardening flaking off and the wrongly machined crankshaft. My own bike and several others on the enfield forum I am on. also from several manufacturers who are busy manufacturing better crankpins and who machine the conrods to take a steel shell for the needle bearings to roll on. (Priceparts and Alpha bearings) the wrongly machined crankshafts see Hitchcocks. The information that the new unit engine uses the same assembly comes from Watsonian the Importers.

It would seem that the350cc version is by and large trouble free, not so the 500's.
many of the 500's have had crankshaft failures at around 10k miles ( including my own).

you might want to look through here The British Bulleteers' Forum :: Index and search through various threads.

Watsonian seem to acknowledge this to some and have been known to supply replacement cranks, to others they just deny everything. guess it depends whether or not they have stock of the cranks that dont fail.

hope that helps top clear some of the hype.
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Old 13 Aug 2011
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Unit construction Royal Enfields
Thanks for the input on this subject, It seems strange that they appear to have problems with engine as they market it as the new imptoved and even more reliable Enfield. I have noticed that prices of these models can be found quiet cheap perhaps this is the reason. Any more comments that could help me decide would still be most welcome.
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