It's Business Time...

In an effort to save my already powder coated frame (purchased that way) I wrapped the frame in tinfoil to help prevent as much "pocking" as possible. Since welding involves molten metal it often leaves "Pock marks," little extra bits of molten metal that spark out and bind to areas you don't intend.













Frame Modification phase two: Welding. So I got some help from fellow bandits to help up the newly prepared piece. Here it is welded up nicely.













Then we cut inside frame out to create the pocket for the simo engine's large fins. Since it doesn't have fans on the flywheel it needs these large fins to cool the engine instead. While a lot of people cut them off to get them to fit, most then have cooling issues. I wanted to preserve these as best I could.


















After mounting the engine it took a series of measuring, marking and cutting to get to fit just right. Here you can see that I had to cut further material to allow for the side intake to be mounted post engine mounting.














Here's the complete mount with engine, side intake and carb.

Frame Modification

Thus begins the odyssey. After some measuring and talking with some Bandits it looks like I've come up with a solution to my engine fitting problem. I need to expand one side of the frame, without loosing structural integrity.

I need a piece to extent the frame. This was harvested from a junk ciao frame thanks to Gabe (Shout Out!)

I cut the opposite frame side off from the gas tank down about half way.


Zack and Gabe explore the caverns of a rusty carcass.


Aerial view of the excavation site...Are those hieroglyphics and a petcock sarcophagus?











I then trimmed off the remaining metal that composed the gas tank. This will be in the way.







After some cutting and grinding the piece is now ready to be welded to the frame...






Coming up next time...
BUT WAIT! ISN'T IT ALREADY POWDER COATED!?!?

TREATS

So while waiting for parts since January to complete this project I stumbled on a new idea. TREATS hooked me up with this...


Simonini's complete 100cc engine. It's all there; engine, side intake, cdi, crazy flywheel, 21mm carb, pipe...



Now I just need to figure out how its going to fit in my ciao.......
I'd like to do it differently than others have documented before. The issue is one side of the fins.



As you can see the right side of the fins extend past the engine mount while the left stays pretty symmetrical. Rufus cut the fins and installed extra fans to help with cooling. Pink ciao from Europe created an extra area on the frame for the fins to fit.

Not sure what direction I'll be going, but I really don't want to chop those fins if I can avoid it as I'm pretty sure they're detrimental to cooling this thing. Vespa engines are traditionally air cooled and have fan blades on their flywheels, this flywheel is flat and round like a puch. I don't know how they expect it to cool properly...