Royal Enfield workshop manuals free at Hitchcock's

Hitchcock's Motorcycles puts workshop manuals on line.

Owners of vintage Royal Enfield motorcycles have a new source of workshop knowledge: Hitchcock's Motorcycles has added to its website workshop manuals you can download and print.

"Due to the increasing demand for technical information, we have taken the plunge and uploaded all our workshop manuals to the website for you to download, view and print at your own convenience," Hitchcock's announced in an email this month.

"We hope this will prove to be a great help with your Royal Enfield restorations."

The newly uploaded workshop manuals are at this link. They run up through models as recent as 2016.

Meanwhile, Hitchcock's already popular Parts Books online now include the Royal Enfield Himalayan, Continental GT 650, Interceptor 650 and some later B5 and C5 models.

These parts books are marvels and even I (no serious mechanic or restorer of motorcycles) have found them very helpful. You find the part that interests you and click on it to get the part number, a description, price and often a helpful photograph.

But even better than this is that the parts books are based on exploded drawings. This is what I need on the rare occasions I have to take something apart and get it back together again.

Hitchcock's parts books identify every part, and its price.

The online parts books are at this link.

Keep in mind that what you are seeing here are parts books produced by Royal Enfield in the relevant era. These weren't always updated when production changes were made, but they are certainly better than working blind.

The same applies to the workshop manuals. For instance, my 1999 U.S.-spec Bullet falls into the book labelled "1989-2007 350cc + 500cc Bullet + Sixty-5." That's a pretty broad stretch of time and models even for Royal Enfield, which changed the motorcycle only gradually over the decades.

Naturally, this workshop manual has to have a "supplement" for the five-speed gearbox, introduced in about 2004.

But everyone with any period Royal Enfield will welcome the helpful "Troubleshooting" chapter. I was amused to learn its technique of checking for too-rich a mixture by putting a thumb over the sparkplug hole while kicking the kickstart lever.

Gas stain on your thumb? Fine. Wet thumb: too rich.

The workshop manuals are meant for you to print them out and consult them as needed. (Or take your laptop out to the garage with you.) The workshop manuals do not have the clever links to parts descriptions and Hitchcock's prices, but that is where you can turn to the online parts books.

"It is a credit to Allan (Hitchcock) and his team to share so much," Royal Enfield enthusiast Chris Overton commented in the classic Interceptor forum."

All in all: Well Done, Hitchcock's.