Villiers 2T 250cc 2 stroke

Admittedly I had never heard of a Villiers engine until I went to look at a couple bikes in February of 2004, but now it’s the beginning of 2005 and I’m looking at pulling it from a 101 Indian Scout frame and rebuilding it.  I’m not looking to put it back in the Indian frame, I just want to rebuild it, maybe I’ll find a frame for it at some point, if not then it’ll just be a learning experience.

Jan.10/05

I had already removed the gas tank at this point, so the shot to the left shows the bike with the engine still in it.  My first step was to pull the cylinder heads, then I undid all the engine mounting bolts and actually had to cut one of the rear ones off, one of the pipes had to come off first as well.  I should probably have pulled them both off but there’ll be time to take the other off later.  I had put some liquid wrench on the head bolts about a week ago and when I pulled them out they came out with no problem.

The shot to the left shows the siren on the back of the bike.  Apparently this was a wall of death bike and while it ran on rollers before the performance they would use the siren to atract people to the show.  You can kinda see how the tire is mostly worn on just one side, obviously they stuck to one direction on the wall of death.

Here it is out of the frame, I tossed the cardboard back there to make it a little easier to make it out without all the background shit. There’s some ugly welds on there to support the Villiers engine, at some point when I get some better documentation I’ll check to see what stock tabs have been spared.

Here’s the engine with the cylinder heads off. I took a look into the primary with a flashlight and it looked quite good. The cylinders aren’t seized and the insides of them didn’t look too bad. I’m used to a 4 stroke with the exhaust and intake on the heads, all the heads on this have are the spark plugs and combustion chambers.

Jan. 11/05

Here’s a shot of the heads, haven’t tried to remove the spark plugs yet. I’ll shoot them with liquid wrench and let them sit for a bit first.

It didn’t take much to remove the cylinders once the heads were off. Just removed the manifold for the carbs, which holds the two cylinders together, along with the gasket. The cylinders were in surprisingly good shape to my untrained eye, they still had the obvious crisscross patterns from being honed. The outside of the cylinders is obviously a different story.

The studs holding the cylinders and heads on are extremely long, I suppose they have to be since the heads don’t bolt to the cylinders but rather the engine case through the cylinders. I put a couple protective socks on the pistons, which appear to be in good shape as well. I hesitate to go much further than this since the inside is likely in good shape, but I’ll need some new gaskets anyway, so a few new oil seals won’t kill me.

I haven’t taken the manifold off the the carb yet, the markings show it to be a Villiers S22/2.

Jan. 13/05

I was hoping to get more done tonight, wife working late and kids at the grandparents, but I ended up getting stuck at work for a few extra hours.  Anyway, I got a little work done, to avoid making a big mess, like I’ve done a few times, I propped the engine up on some wood perched over/in a drain pan. I started with the left hand side but the bottom two bolts didn’t want to come out, so I put some liquid wrench on them and moved to the other side. I had removed the name plate off the left side earlier, only to discover it was just a badge with no access to the internals, so I didn’t take the right one off right away.  I pulled the kickstart lever off, there was no shifter, so that saved me some trouble, and then the clutch cable.  None of the screws were seized on this side so I was able to get the cover off fairly easy.

It’s when I pulled the cover off that I realized that there was indeed something under the badge on this side of the engine, so I had to pull it off and disconnect the leads that come off the points. Once I got them off and pulled them through the cover it was finally off the engine. The side cover on this side of the engine doesn’t hold any oil, so it was dry inside.  The clutch mechanism is an odd one, and one I haven’t entirely figured out, the cable runs under the engine and connects to that piece you see hanging down between the kicker shaft and the shift.  When you pull on the lever it pulls the bottom of that shaft closer to the engine. Not sure what’s happening on the other side of the inner case, still no manual, so I’ll have to open it up to find out. The stator type thing is pretty big, but the wires behind the cover look like they might be a bit rusty.  We’ll find out when I get back down there to do some more work.

Jan. 16/05

It looks like I got a little heavy handed while removing the outer chaincase cover, this bike has an outer and an inner chaincase cover, as opposed to the Triumphs I’m used to where the outer chaincase, or primary, cover bolts right to the engine case. Anyway, all the screws came out fairly easy except the one at the back of the case, so after leaving some liquid wrench on it and not getting anywhere, I decided to try the impact driver.  I placed the bit into the slot of the screw, turned the wrench appropriately so that when the hammer hit it the bit would turn, and whack, or should I say, crack! Consider this one lesson learned at the price of one inner chaincase cover. I’m thinking had I left the other screws in then the front of the chaincase would have been anchored and the back wouldn’t be able to go down like it did, breaking off the rear part of the inner chaincase cover.

To the left is another shot of the damage, sometimes I’m not too bright.  Oh well, looks like now I’ll be tracking down oils seals, gaskets and an inner chaincase cover.

Anyway, I’m into the primary, I drained the oil but there’s still some crap left in there, looks like some water in there as well.  The next step is to remove the primary.

Fortunately I can see some of the threads for the nut holding the gear onto the crankshaft, so no guesswork as to where this is a right or left hand thread. Since the engine isn’t in the bike, I have to rear wheel to use to lock the engine, so from the picture to the right you can see a little metal rod going from the gear on the crank to the one on the clutch basket.  I got this trick from Bear in RMH, although he had a slightly more professional looking bar for the job.

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The metal rod held and I was able to get the nut undone with a little effort. It was on pretty good so I had to stick a pipe on the end of the wrench and push against the pipe with my body while holding the engine with my hands.  I’ve done it this way with my Triumph as well.  I think I may have to start pulling these things while they’re still in the engine. The next step is to get the nut off the cluth, this is proving a little trickier, and I suspect there is a speciality tool for this, since the large nut is round with 4 holes in the top