Stock Races – First Heat

Stock Finals

Variated Finals

Variated & NonVariated combined finals

To get it roadworthy wasn’t too bad, below is how it was when I started with it.

As you can see it really wasn’t bad at all when I got it just needs a few things replaced and bent back into shape

The first thing that need to be swapped out were the handlebars, my brother Tim had a spare set that fit perfectly.

Ouchies

Next up were the front brake calipers, I tried bleeding the crap out of them but they just wouldn’t tighten up. Turns out they were both bent or at least the guide plate that connects to the forks was. I picked up a used set on ebay. It’s funny I was blown away by how heavy the bike felt and it was just that the calipers were in a permanent state of dragging until I swapped the out. One of the rotors has a slight bend to it, not enough to force the pads apart, just enough to give it an uneven scraping sound. Right now that’s on my todo list, but it’s fine for the time being.

Little bendy

The radiator was pretty far gone, I just replaced it with a new one, I was able to save the fan though just by bending it back into shape. It was not difficult to take it appart I just needed to choose the best screwdriver set for the job and then it came out like butter.

One of these is new!

I haven’t gotten around to it yet, but the fuel tank is super dented, so much so that it really isn’t worth fixing. I picked up a replacement tank, but while it looks good on the outside, it’s got a decent amount of rust on the inside so I’m going to etch and seal coat it before I switch tanks.

Bad on the outside, good on the inside.

Good on the outside, bad on the inside

I added some new bar ends, turn signals, mirrors and a new battery and the bike was back on the street. I’ve only got about 200 miles on it so far, but it’s tons of fun.

A few weeks back I picked up a grande of my own, needs a little bit of work, but I figured I should get a post up before I really start digging into it. I’m excited to start messing with Vespas since they’re one of the few brands I’ve yet to work on.

Glorious!

The next thing I had to deal with was that I already had a good axle on the front that I wanted to keep, but it’s 10mm as opposed to the usual 12mm that folks run so the bearings I needed were a little different. I used 6200-2RS bearings. They have a 30mm OD and a 10mm ID, the snowflakes ID are 32mm so I needed to shim them, luckily I had some scrap stock lying around that was roughly 1mm thick.

Before with Spokes

Rear on, front needs discs and bearings

Front Converted

After, Everything mounted and finished

I’m looking to get $600 obo for it.

I’m listing it for $1,100 on craigslist, but I’m open to offers that are totally silly. Also check out this wheels for tool box for your DIY projects.

Anywho here’s some pictures I took of it that are up to date so you have an idea of how it looks now.

Here’s a video I made last night

My new white walls desecrated by the dreaded tomos self oiling chain.

Both of the Tomossess (not sure what the plural of Tomos is oddly enough, Tomi?)I’ve owned had this problem. There are a couple of possible reasons, rather than getting into them too much I suggest you head over to Myron’s Mopeds and check out their writeup. But the gist of it is oil can leak through in a few spots…

1. Between the large outer oil seal and the distance bushing
2. Between the distance bushing and the main output shaft
3. Between the main output shaft and the pedal shaft

So for #1 I’ve already replaced all of the seals on the bottom end of the engine. #2 the mating service appears to be tight and blemish free.

So that just leaves #3 (means to aslo buy Bahco from MTS getting all the tools needed), to try and fix that problem treats is now selling a special nut that has a built in oil seal. I picked one up and threw it on my A3.

Treats Oil Seal Nut

Here it is installed on my bike, it’s significantly wider so I had to ditch my white chain protector thing. Kind of a bummer I liked how it looked with the whitewalls, but if this works it certainly worth it to not have oil painted rims and tires.

Oh Noes! It’s too wide:(

Here’s what it looks like side by side with the stock nut for a little size comparison.

Side by side width comparison

I haven’t really had too much time to ride the bike around and see if it’s fixed now, but I’ll report back with my findings when I do.

No Lighty No Happy

When I got the bike there wasn’t any lighting of any sort, it had all been smashed or torn off. I slapped on an ignition, a moped headlight and a tail light just so I’d be able to ride it last fall. The shifting lever was also at a bad angle and had been welded right to the shaft so I had no way to adjust it. The only option would be to pull everything apart and replace it. Now that wrenching season is upon us I’m getting all that back in working order.

First up the shifting lever. I cut the shaft clean off so I could remove the ignition side cover and ended up needing to pull the clutch side as well.

In the bottom middle of the engine you can see a little nub where I hacked off the old shifter lever

I ended up having to pull the clutch side cover and pull the clutch and a bunch of other things in order to get the junk shaft out. It ended up being a bunch of work just to get a lever that I could adjust. Oh well it’s done now, while I had things apart I cleaned the oil strainer filter thing and replaced the engines oil seals. I had ordered a cheap gasket set from ebay/thailand and threw that in there as well, however the gaskets were shit and the engine leaked oil everywhere once it was back together. I just cut my own out of a roll of karropak and it’s good to go now.

Since I had the engine off the bike I cleaned it up and painted it black. I’m a big fan of black engines, hides all of the oil and gunk that builds up on them over time.

Cleaned up and ready for paint

Painted!

Moving on to wiring I decided to ditch pretty much everything original that was left on the bike, I kept the rectifier, foot brake switch, the ignition coil and the cdi box but all the old wiring harness and stuff ended up in the trash.

I picked up a small sealed lead acid battery that I was able to fit into the frames battery compartment, a 12v voltage regulator, some turn signals, turn signal controls, LED flasher relay, turn signal/horn/light switch all in one  assembly and a trail tech vector digital speedo. I found a cool looking rando motorcycle headlight at the junkyard to replace my temporary moped headlight.

New old headlight

I pulled everything off the bike and began to wire it up, the gist of it is I wanted the keyed ignition switch to cut off everything from the battery as well as kill the engine when turned to the off position. With the key in the on position the battery will be brought back into the circuit and run the turn signals and tail/brake lights and when the light switch is turned on the headlight and speedo backlight will be turned on. All my diagrams are pencil drawings so unfortunately I don’t have anything I can post right now.

All apart for easy access

Made quite a mess in the process.

Nice and tidy workspace

Amazingly it all worked out in the end. The only thing I ran into after everything was wired up was I had my rear turn signals switched around, but that’s just two wires I had to switch and it’s good to go now.

About the only thing I want to add to the bike is maybe a USB port for charging my phone but for all practical purposes the trail is done!.

Wired up and back together

From the back