Bullet Electra Restoration
I thought I should document the process of restoration of my Electra 5s CI.*
Background
I bought the Electra 5s around 2006 as a replacement to the then senior citizen Chetak which was too old and that my Fiero was used by more than one person at home. The reason for going for the Electra 5s was that it had gear shift on the left and I was apprehensive to have two bikes at home with gears on different sides. In hindsight that was a unnecessary decision made in the ignorance of youth. We will come to that later. I also choose disc brake option for "superior" braking ability and electric start because there were choices now for bullets that never was heard of before.*
Anyway 20+ years later and after close to 70k kilometres the Electra was sitting under the covers for several years while a Standard 350 CI took over as favourite. The Std 350 is incomparable to the Electra. I started using the Std 350, because of the relaxed 4 speed gear box and of course the neutral finder magic wand at one's foot.*Biking is hardly of concern now, and most travels happen in the family cars or by public transportation. The bullet however is the only motorcycle I prefer to ride, and it has been so over so many years. More over, due to a mistake in the RTO, when I renewed my DL in 2018, I only received my Car licence and it was missing the two wheeler licence. I never bothered to fix it or get a two wheeler DL as there was no requirement at all.
A few months ago, I felt that I am wasting away the bullets at home, while the world is moving away from petrol. Maybe in another 10 years petrol would not be available any more. I wanted to resume using my bikes again. So I applied for a LL and will soon get my DL for 2 wheeler again , though I am apprehensive about the looks I might get during the DL test at this age.
Of course there is the Standard 350 in pristine condition and always ready to be ridden, but a twinge of conscience bothered me for neglecting the Electra which was standing as always in the front part of the house. It felt as though that a child was looking at me in sadness, and I determined to restore it back to health.
Inspecting the years of damage
I did not bother to attempt to start it, because I knew that with so many years of neglect, it would be wiser to clean and restore everything than damage it further by attempting to get it running as is. So the saga began.
I had to use generous amounts of WD40 to release the nuts that have become rusted to start stripping out the bike. The seat underbelly is badly rusted and it has gone ahead and also rusted parts of the rear mudguard. Without too much difficulty however, I removed the seat and started to remove the tank. The front bolts were easy enough to remove but the rear one was locked solid. After a lot of coaxing, finally the tank was removed. I first emptied the contents of the tank and as expected it has become terribly rusted on the inside. I can see flakes of rust and the petrol that seeped out of the fuel cock was a dirty brown colour. I have no intention of fixing this tank, and I will look for a new red colour tank.
The carburettor was another story. The flanges were easy enough to remove, but the breather box on the side was locked fast and the entire bracket came off in pieces as I wrestled to remove it. It will need replacement as well. After the breather box was out, I managed to remove the carburettor. It was almost impossible to open the carburettor as it was full of dirty gunk which had locked it fast. I had to tap it quite violently with a wooden mallet and finally I was able to open it. It is full of rust flakes that have formed a thick residue and while I think I can get the bowl clean, I doubt that all the internal orifices will be clean enough. Also I have damaged one of the floats while trying to open it, so this is another replacement item.
I am unable to open the spark plug, and I dare not put too much force due to fear of damaging the threads. I will need to come back to this later.
The silencer is badly rusted as well, but it can definitely be salvaged. I like this original silencer, which has a mellow sound than the noisy ones that we seem to find in the market. I will try to retain this as far as possible.
The wiring looks terrible, some of it is frayed, but I will of course need to check that with a multimeter later.
There is also another strange problem. The last person where I had serviced it seems to have spray painted the entire top end in silver paint. The paint has mixed with rust and formed some sort of a very viscous liquid that I am unable to properly clean.
Next immediate steps:
List of parts to replace.
1. Look for a new tank in Red colour and the side boxes as well. One of them has nearly fallen apart.
2. Obtain a good carburettor
3. Get a new seat which is preferably soft.
Inspect further
1. Try to open the valve covers and get all the paint cleaned.
2. Try to open the spark plug without damaging the head.
3. Drain all old oils and inspect the primary chain.
The kick lever moves with no pressure, and there might probably be further damage than meets the eye. I will know as I get further into it.
I will try to document all the steps here so that others may provide friendly advice, or share useful information that might help me get the Electra back in good condition.
The goal is to use the Electra for the annual trip to Kanyakumari which my family does every December. As they all prefer to travel by train, I am planning to go by the Electra come December.
After the initial strip down of the bike 