Filed under: Projects | Tags: Electric Moped, Electric Puch, ElectroMagnum, emoped, puch magnum, sears freespirit
I came home tonight and found this rad beast in my garage. Its a magnum thats been modded to hold a huge battery pack and electric motor. All the moped elements are there (pedals, MikeThomas disk, freespirit seat, 5 stars) and it look sick. I guess it belongs to one a friend of my roommate, but they left and its past my bedtime, so the specifics will have to wait until my next encounter. In anycase though, wow!
Filed under: repairs | Tags: christmas, derbi revolution, suzuki fa50, yamaha chappy
All my bikes that can run are ! Newport still needs a tube and the frev needs the 19t sprocket put on and the chain run, but still, 4 running bikes plus my bros tomos. The frev turned out pretty decent. It runs fine, brake light works, and a 55w headlight! The seat mount isn’t perfect but it looks pretty good. Changes will come later when its all dolled up, but for now I’d like to just ride it. I can’t wait to take it for a spin! Riding chappy around again was a blast, especially after seeing some kids scooting around the hood on a pair of fa50s.
Filed under: Uncategorized
I’ve been working hard!
I got the forks swapped between the two bikes, a spoke on the rear of the frev, today we cut up the seat pan to get it to mount better (still not perfect but it is quite functional), I got most of the wiring in place, have the magnum running well, got a tail light and regulator, got a head for chappy, and so on. A few more little projects, namely finishing up the frev tomorrow (connecting wiring, throttle/cable, swap the rear sprocket, run the chain, hook everything up and then blast. I’d also like to get the limited mag on (blue up front looks funny) as well as get chappy buttoned up. I’d also like to get the Newport flat fixed, but that might have to wait till monday. I also need to replace the voltage regulator on my car, so hopefully that part is here tonight. Its crazy, getting these bikes working, getting prepared to move, finishing christmas shopping and hanging out with all my friends. I’m a busy dude!
Thanks as always to treatland, I ordered yesterday about noon and my parts were here in less than 24 hours. I don’t think anyone (except maybe amazon, sometimes) can match that service. Top notch!
I am working on getting *all of my bikes running, and so far so good! The magnum is working much better, and is even more fun to ride since blasto re-welded the hanger bracket on my proma circuit (3rd re-weld required so far). Its geared 16×36, so its a blast to ride. Super fast off the line topping out around 45 maybe 50. It can easily take any hill. I stopped by treats yesterday after work and got this, apparently one of the last 3 in existence. My revolution has a ducati CDI that is identical to the malossi version for pugeouts and mobys, so I hooked this up quickly and the bike was sparking like a champ. I built a bracket and mounted the box under the tank on the crossbar to keep it clean/dry and looking good. The bike fired right up and runs strong. I also took apart the green derbi, as the wheels need to be sold and the motor eventually needs to make it on the c5.
I have some projects I hope to get done over the next week including:
-complete rewiring of the revolution thing: Headlight, tail-light, brake light?, kill switch etc.
-putting a hole on the intake side of the piston. 360′ port timing for blast
-roughing up the variator cheeks, the belt is currently slipping under hard launches
-weld up my extended pedal arm, run a pedal chain
-fix the flat on my newport
-get chappy running (again): get the front wheel back on, new head (bolted up of course), and get the body cover on it.
-swap forks between the magnum and revolution. I’m moving to SF and want to get the rev up there, and I want strong brakes for the hills. Later this means a rotor on the 5 star. In the mean time it means spokes front and rear.
-get the rev registered. I need a vin plate.
-clean the ltd tank, put on my dash and finally call the bike “done”
The lower on the list the less likely they’ll get done. That said, who knows, I have a free week and a fractured heal so there isn’t much else to do.
Filed under: Projects
Weird, Justin and I rode mopeds yesterday. I haven’t ridden in awhile so it was nice to get back out on the mean streets.
I got my za polini magnum back up and running. I was having trouble getting the HPI timing set right, so I yanked that and threw on a treats CDI (with lights!) to blast. I rode over to Justin’s and hit 400 on my temp gauge, so I retarded the timing, so off we rode. We blasted for awhile, and when there was finally a street light I saw I was at 500 degrees on the temp gauge. It kept running fine, so rumors of seizing polinis are unfounded in my book. I did have the starter cable back out on my, so that was annoying and I ran out of gas 2 blocks from home.
But yeah, so fun blasting at 55-60 in the cold night air. Its even better being able to see while you do it!
Filed under: Uncategorized
Listed all this stuff for sale over on moped army. Some cool little bits and I’m flexible on the prices. Check it!
I’m trying to fund the finishing of the frevolution and LTD (really?!?), and maybe even the c5. Also a trip next week to NYC. That’s the big one.
Filed under: Projects | Tags: cupertino, cupertino grocery, L, Newport, Puch e50, Puch Newport
So the new bike is a Newport, a 78 Newport L to be exact. I know, not too exciting, but I only bought it because it is just about perfect. And black. Here it is:
I got it, a cover, a sweet 80s bubble helmet, full puch service manual, 1981 puch sales literature, grocery baskets, the original manual, and keys for the fork lock.
It was stored indoors, and was sold new just down the street from my house. The carb was filthy, but a quick cleaning and it was ready(ish) to go. A test ride found the carb was still clogged and not letting fuel into the bowl, so I swapped the body and boom, done. That and I had to patch the tube. The photos show how I got the bike, I’ve done zero cleaning and its still super sharp. I’m pretty excited about riding this one around stock for a bit.
I really shouldn’t have bought it, but it was perfect, so I did. Yep, I got a new moped. Hot dang is it purty. Photos and a real description to follow. In the mean time, take a guess at what I got!
WEll after blog-slacking (as the entire moped community seems to be doing right now), I figured I ought to make a difference, so I’ll update on the Frevolution and its performance the last few weeks.
First of all, the bike is awesome, but that was apparent from the initial photos. It rides really smooth, has good power and is a blast to ride around. It still isn’t tuned just right (me=lazy), but with some stiffer clutch springs and now knowing it won’t explode, its fun to ride all out all the time. The clutch springs are stiff, but I can definitely do more because it only just barely wheelies now. I want full wheelies on command.
The bike survived sacramento with a few issues. First I lost the nut that holds on the drive sprocket. That ended my friday right, and as I was waiting for chase, I discovered the JBweld someone applied to fix a tank leak had failed, thus the pretty c5 tank was useless. Bummer. I found a spare nut and torqued it tight and its been on since. I am going to drill it and safety wire it on because unlike flat reeds, I have no pedal shaft to keep the nut on there if it undoes itself. Nate was cool and hooked up a pinto tank which looked really sharp. Last error (just the other day) came from my inability to weld. My extended pedal shaft snapped. Fortunately I didn’t do the important welds because I’d probably already be hurting from failure. Oh yea, I got a parking ticket as well, super lame.
Back home i utilized a spare magnumX tank, but this too sucks and the bolt holding it snapped so I am left to zip ties. I will braze the c5 tank soon. And I found the ultimate seat. So all in all, its what I would call the perfect moped. 50cc, quick off the line, tops at about 45 (wait till porting!), comfortable, and fun through the turns. I’m pretty pumped its working well in its initial trials before painting and beautifying.
