Royal Enfield and the Secret of Magura

Magura twist grip and its "perch" have a secret.

 The members of The Unofficial Royal Enfield Community Forum diagnosed my problem almost instantly. They were so on the mark that they even caught me in a small lie. 

I asked what could have made the motor of my 1999 Royal Enfield Bullet run away, its rpm surging as I sat innocently at a stop light. 

"Are you absolutely sure you didn't touch anything? You didn't blip the throttle? Your hands were definitely off the bike? If so, then suddenly deciding to rev its nuts off entirely of its own volition is beyond weird," wrote forum member Steve Thackery. 

"If you did touch something, that would be very useful information for the diagnosis." 

Right on the money. I wasn't innocent. Sitting at the light I had felt the Bullet was idling a bit fast. I experimentally gave a tug on the throttle cable on its run from the twist grip to the nacelle. The Bullet immediately begun roaring.

I hadn't wanted to admit this clumsy move.

Forum members correctly suggested I check the twist grip. I did and, to my horror, found the throttle outer cable out of its socket on the outside of the twist grip assembly and the inner cable unwound and curled outside its housing.

I posted a photo of this on the forum. Members suggested buying a new cable and new controls.

This could be a problem for my Bullet, built in early 1999.

The handlebar controls on Royal Enfield Bullets manufactured 1988 to mid-1999 were made by Magura, a German company; Royal Enfield switched to made-in-India Minda controls for the Bullet in June, 1999. The old Magura gear has now been unavailable for many years.

Luckily, Hitchcocks Motorcycles sells a kit to replace the Magura controls with Minda versions, which are old themselves but still available.

"Swapping over to the 'newer' Minda hardware lets you keep ready access to current control cables, better levers and better electrics. Well worth the time and trouble," forum member AzCal Retred advised, helpfully. That is the kind of information that is really useful.

But wait: what if I could just fix my Magura twist grip? I decided to try. I already had an unused spare Magura style throttle cable.

Well, first, there didn't appear to be any way to connect my new throttle cable without removing the twist grip from the bike. (There is, but I would discover it only later. It's THE MAGURA SECRET.)

Twisting, tugging, sweating, and swearing finally got the twist grip to come off, in my hands. It was obvious now how to attach my new cable. The barrel shaped end tucks into a tight nook in the rubber grip and is held there.

But no amount of violence or dirty words would then convince the twist grip to reconnect to its "perch." The perch is the plastic module that holds the twist grip, the throttle cable, kill switch, rear brake light switch, front brake cable and lever, and rearview mirror.

My hoped for repair seemed doomed.

I finally found the answer, on the Myrons Mopeds website. (Apparently Magura throttles, of related but not identical design, were used on a variety of mopeds.)

THE SECRET: The twist grip will neatly snap onto the perch ONLY if both are OFF the handlebar! It is the handlebar itself that holds the assembly together.

If you are still with me here, you realize that I had only pulled the twist grip off; to get the perch off I would now have to disconnect the kill switch, throttle cable, front brake cable, and rear brake light switch. I could do all that, in time, in my garage.

Imagine having to do all that, and then reconnecting it all on the side of the road, just to swap in a new throttle cable. Impossible! What was Magura thinking?

Well they were thinking. And there is a way. I wouldn't even have had to remove the twist grip.

Silver throttle cable barrel is just visible if you peel back the rubber flange of the Magura twist grip.

Here is the incredible REST OF THE SECRET, again from Myrons Mopeds:

"Peel the flange of the grip there back with your thumb, and hold it there. With the other hand, place the sideways barrel end of the throttle cable into the cavity. Lay the wire over the ridge, and wrap it around the curved guide. When pulled taut it should fall into it’s groove. The throttle should pull the wire and move free."

Would you have thought of it? Just peel back the rubber grip and pull the old cable barrel out, all with the grip still in place. Then pop in the barrel of the new cable and let the carburetor spring pull the cable taught.

It works! But you had better have a needle-nose pliers in your toolkit if you ever need to do this by the side of the road.

How not to be a menace to your motorcycle

He shouldn't have rushed to complete a repair. 
(Uncredited cartoon from Motorcycle Timeline)

 My recent blog item about damaging my Royal Enfield in the process of trying to fix it reminded reader Maynard Hershon about a piece he wrote for motorcycling magazines awhile ago. There are lessons in it for every motorcycle owner. Here is what he wrote: 

In July, when Tamar and I visited Bend, Oregon, we met Doug Meyer for a chat over coffee and lunch. Doug owned and operated Dublin Kawasaki (Dublin, California) before moving to Bend to work for Muzzy’s. 

At Muzzy’s, Doug developed products for their retail line and tuned Rickey Gadson’s AMA Prostar Shootout, 500hp turbo ZX-12 drag bike. Doug is a two-decades-plus veteran and record-holder at Bonneville. 

The last year or so he’s worked in the aircraft industry but he’s still riding, still eyeballs-deep in one sort of motorsport or other. He contributes to Bikeland.org; click on this to check out (for instance) Doug’s report about riding a 240-hp nitrous-kitted, Muzzy’s ZX-14. 

Doug told us he is rebuilding a ’66 Corvette. He found a clean, matching-numbers car and decided to do a frame-up, no-compromise restoration. A Corvette is a restorer’s dream, he says, because removing the fiberglass body is easy. Making that body pristine and beautiful may not be so easy. 

Expecting to have to search far and wide, he found a guy a few hours away in Gresham, Oregon, near Portland, who would prepare and paint the body. The guy, clearly a meticulous craftsman, told Doug how to deliver the body to Gresham for initial prep.

After the prep work, Doug would pick up the body, reinstall it on the chassis and deliver the rolling result to Gresham. Thus the body guy could ensure that the pieces fit precisely, perfectly.

So far, all of Doug’s work has gone smoothly. When he has reached for a wrench, it has been right where his memory said it was. Never a swearword, never a thrown tool.

In telling Tamar and me about that process, Doug left unsaid what we all know: It doesn’t always go that way.

We talked about jobs that don’t go that way. We agreed that when it doesn’t, you should place the tool you’re holding on your bench, turn and walk out of your garage or shop.

Working on our equipment when we are not 100% present and in the proper frame of mind is not fair to our mechanical consciences, to the machines or their future owners.

Doug said he did, in the course of his work, encounter one stripped fastener; it’s a 40-year old car after all. Doug knew then that the car had never fallen into the hands of an inept mechanic – or even a capable guy working on the car when he shouldn’t have.

Doug says that on the Corvette restoration websites, that guy, the nightmare previous owner, is known as Bubba. Nearly every contributor to the several forums has a Bubba story or many Bubba stories.

Careful, meticulous Corvette owners exist, no doubt. But they’re not legion. Bubba is legion... Bubba is everywhere.

Bubba, if he can’t manage to wiggle his (inappropriate) wrench into place to remove or install a universal joint, cuts access holes in the floor of the car, then glues crude patches in place to cover the holes.

Bubba Motorbiker can’t be bothered to find the proper tool. His Leatherman is so much handier. Sadly, he can locate a hex key. With it, he over-tightens small bolts that attach plastic parts to his bike, cracking gorgeous, brutally expensive pieces that were perfect, seconds before.

Bubba buys a breathtaking bike but never adjusts the chain, checks the tire pressures or pays a shop to check the valve clearances. He doesn’t adjust his shock and isn’t sure how.  

Bubba, it seems to me, is why (in this era of sophisticated, easily maintained bikes) used bikes cost so much less than new ones. Buy a new bike; it’s surely Bubba-free. A used one? Maybe it’s been owned by our friend Bubba.

As Doug told us stories about his wonderful, painstaking body man and his own relaxed, agony-free mechanical efforts, it occurred to me that Doug Meyer is the Anti-Bubba.

But Doug isn’t the ONLY Anti-Bubba. You and I can be Anti-Bubbas too. As Clint so memorably reminded us, we have to know our limits.

I didn’t always know mine. I’m confessing; I have been a Bubba. Mea Bubba. Decades ago I worked in a Honda shop in rural Indiana. Mostly I did tune-ups on Hondas, jobs that couldn’t get me into trouble.

Once my boss asked me to replace something inside the cases of a Harley-Davidson Sprint, a sweet 250 made for Harley in Italy. I got the covers off the lovely little horizontal single and replaced a shifter return spring, if memory serves.

Reassembling the engine, I got impatient and rapped on the stubborn covers with a mallet to guide them together, to "help" them fit. Maybe I warped the covers. Maybe, God Forbid, I ruined the cases.

Whatever the result, I wish I’d never gone near that bike, never had a chance to hurt it.

Had I had the Bubba chat with Doug Meyer long ago, I’d have done just what he and I agreed to do: I’d have put the mallet down. I’d have walked away from the engine, the bench and the room. My co-workers would have congratulated me for doing it.

Most of us will inevitably suffer from the labors of permanent or occasional Bubbas. Let us resolve not to cause any suffering from our own efforts.

Let us vow on our mechanical honor that we will never ever be Bubbas, cross our clumsy hearts.

NOTE: This article is not meant to reflect on individuals, motorcycle mechanics, or shops that use the name Bubba. Originally a nickname for a brother, it has come to mean "a good old boy," and can be meant affectionately or disparagingly, or, as here, both at the same time. 

I fixed my Royal Enfield until I broke it

Somehow I failed to see the throttle cable hanging loose. But what I did next was a bigger problem.

 Kids learn early to take care of their favorite toys. Parents teach us well. 

"If you break that, you won't get another," is the message a child receives when a parent wags a warning finger at misbehavior. 

Intentionally or not, they're teaching the value of things, and our responsibility for them. 

So I feel badly that I've let down my 1999 Royal Enfield Bullet. It's out of commission, thanks to me. 

Always present in my mind is the knowledge that this is the way many motorcycles end up: partially disassembled for some long ago forgotten problem, a repair that was never completed, or was botched in the attempt. 

They're pushed to the side of the garage and left to rust and rot.

After my Bullet revved uncontrollably while I waited for a stop light to change, I pushed it home. 

Anxious to find the problem, I twisted the grip and found it operated.

I removed and opened the carburetor, but it showed no sign of any problem.

I examined the points and the timing and found no problem. Even the spark plug looked OK.

Stumped, I wrote the Unofficial Royal Enfield Community Forum, where members instantly pinpointed my problem: the throttle cable itself.

Checking it, finally, I found the outer cable loose, actually outside its housing.

While sitting stopped at the traffic light I had sensed that the idle was slightly fast, and had pulled on the throttle cable, probably dislodging the outer cable from its socket and, with the motorcycle in neutral at the stop light, the rpm had soared.

If I had only been more patient out on the road, I might have noticed the loose cable, tucked it back into its socket, and not had to push the motorcycle two miles!

Now that I knew the problem, I was impatient to effect a repair. I acted impulsively.

Instead of simply returning the cable to its socket, I figured the twist grip itself would have to come off for examination.

This was stupid: the inner cable wasn't disconnected from the twist grip; the outer cable was just dislodged from its socket on the exterior of the throttle assembly.

If only I had analyzed the problem more carefully.

To free the twist grip, I unscrewed the kill switch module and left it hanging by its delicate wires.

Then I twisted the rear brake light switch out of the brake lever pedestal, in the process breaking the delicate soldered connections to the switch.

Then I removed the rearview mirror.

Then I slackened off the front brake adjustment to free the brake cable from the lever pedestal.

Every one of these disabling steps was unnecessary and ineffectual: the throttle twist grip still wasn't free!

See, I was making two errors here: First, there had been no reason at all to remove the twist grip. Second, even if there had been, there was no need to damage the whole right handlebar control assembly to do it. 

Still more impatient now, I twisted and tugged and, finally! The twist grip suddenly came off in my hand.

What now? I don't even know what it was I did that freed it!

I now needed to put the outer cable end back into its socket (which I could have done all along) and reattach the needlessly removed twist grip. But I didn't know how to reattach the grip, since I didn't know how I'd gotten it off.

Struggling, pushing, lubricating, twisting; nothing worked. It wouldn't go back on. I was foiled.

Look around at the damage I had done:

On the workbench (or on the floor around the motorcycle) were my disassembled carburetor and the motorcycle's battery. The fuel line was off. Hanging from the handlebars were the wires and cables I'd unnecessarily broken or disconnected, erasing their proper adjustments.

I realized now that I wasn't certain how the carburetor went together. I didn't know how to adjust the front brake, or how I would fix the broken brake light wiring. (I'm the fool who had soldered the wires to the switch, not realizing that unscrewing the switch for maintenance would snap my soldering.)

I thought of all those ads I'd read over the years, for motorcycles that were in great shape, except partly disassembled by foolish owners who couldn't put them back together. Left to decay.

So is this where it could end? I ruefully imagined writing my own ad:

"For sale. My 1999 Royal Enfield Bullet. High mileage but good condition. Just needs new throttle twist grip and attach carburetor and cables. Easy fix."

That won't happen to my bike, at least not yet.

I'm not giving up.