This is happening...

So after some life hiatus, I'm back with some changes and updates. First...I'm in a new shop! Fellow bandits, Elder, Adam, Kitty, and Neal adopted me into their garage...unfortunately in one night the garage went from having 10 mopeds to 17...yikes.

That's my space there in the corner.
The other day my friend Michael were working on his grande and we discovered this:

double yikes. He also had a cracked subframe in two places...but we won't get into that. ha. Onwards and upwards. He's rebuilding and kitting his Grande. I have seen 3 Grande subframes fail...in similar fashion...I might suggest some reinforcements.
I on the other hand had my own flywheel problems as I have continued to put together the engine for my yellow ciao. For some reason I just couldn't get the flywheel to seat properly. At first I thought that I just wasn't aligning the key hole with the woodruff key...so I took the woodruff key out and it still didn't seat. And then I realized this:

The stock flywheels require a spacer to be placed on the shaft that are either metal or plastic.

And it seemed that the spacer I was using wouldn't allow the flywheel to go all the way down. Then I noticed this:

stock flywheel (never mind the broken parts)

Euro CDI flywheel. See the difference? Spacer built in to the flywheel. Thus I solved my problem.

My name is Judge...

I picked up some euro vespa CDI from one of the Swoops and got a package deal...With the cdi came these cases.

Above is a picture of the small case side. You'll notice that there are gears headed into where the bearing is. Apparently there's also gears on the crank itself. So these gears grab and it spins the crank.

I was told that they were for a "kickstart engine" but after further inspection I'm wondering if its electric start.

Any thoughts? You be the judge. I'm not using the small case side, just the large one as it has the right mounting for the CDI. Last night I started breaking this engine down and adding over my components from my yellow ciao. On comparison between this CDI and the Kinetic CDI...its crazy. They're so different. I'll get photos of that soon.

Back on the Road!

During Whisky Business 3 my super ciao was running GREAT! It was the fastest its ever been. I made it through most of the long ride, but on the final stretch it started doing its strange extreme revving thing again. I pulled over and tried to figure out what was going on, but I couldn't really make sense of the extreme surge of power that was going on. I gave up waiting for chase and tried riding really slowly (since I was only a couple miles away from the end)...This however led to a soft seize...Bonerjamz. Just lost power and the engine whizzed to a stop.

The ciao has been in time out ever since. UNTIL this past weekend. I pulled it out of the basement, tightened a head bolt and an intake bolt (that were really only slightly loose) and fired it up. Runs great. No leaks. Its rich now however because of how hot and humid it is now rather than in may...But I'm not complaining. It must have just been too lean and had a tiny air leak which led it to seize. I'm just glad that I get to ride it again. Looking forward to bringing it to our weekly Wednesday night ride tonight. All of this has really reminded me however that I can't rely on this bike to be my everyday rider. It's awesome news though for sure.

Mission Peugeot 103

I realized that I need another reliable bike. After surveying the basement to see what was the "most complete" I decided to finally put the 103 together.

Yes...that's a seat belt holding on the seat. Don't ask me why...it came like that. The reed valve set up is so small. Each little hole opens up to about 8mm. Extremely limiting the bike.

At some point I'd like to put the 19mm intake on that I also got in the trade. I'd also like to toy around with the stock reed set up and see how far I can open it up and cut my own reeds. For now I'll look for a set up via treats, including a different intake. They're pretty reasonably priced. I'll probably just run a 14/12 dell for now. This will hopefully help with reliability...but then again it is French...

In other news. This happend to Mark Ryan this weekend. He seized his hobbit, took apart his engine and found this...

That straight thing in there is not a paper clip or a staple...its his cir-clip completely straightened out. SCREW THAT!

Paint by number

It's be a bit since I've updated. I've been super busy with non moped life related stuff...But about a month or so ago I went ahead and painted the frame and some fork pieces with white spray paint. I figured everyone looks at the tank anyway.

Snowstorm nose...

Best Buddies Kentucky

Painting: Phase 2 and Ciao sealed bearings

I have a few parts bikes that I'm trying to get up and running. One of which is a ciao that i got from Nate during the "French Revolution." I had some ciao wheels but i thought I'd seal up those bearings. I popped out the cup and took the wheel down to the bearing shop and found that a 6201 fit nicely.

Next I found a pipe that would work as a spacer. You need a spacer that will touch the inner races of each of the bearings. As you can see, my pipe is too long...

So you have to cut it down to size, you big dummy.

Is it getting hot in here, or is it just my crotch?

Now that my spacer is the right size, I decided to do myself a favor by packing the outside space with some shop towels. This will make it so that the spacer stays relatively in the same place when you take out the axle...which in this case will just be a bolt (pictured above).

All that's left is to pop in the bearing for the other side and wallah it's sealed.

In other news...I got my Sachs G3 tank and seat pan back from the sprayer...BLUE!!! At least there's Vespino cosmetic progress...