Working on a new seat for the Pinto

The factory 1.5 seat wasn't working for me. It sat up too high, despite the frame being chopped. It sat too far forward. And it wasn't comfortable. So, I picked up a generic saddle seat from ebay. I'm working on removing the spring post setup. I will then weld the post solid to the base of the pan.

Hercules back together...no spark though

I finally got this bike all reassembled and rewired, but I've been fighting and fighting this no spark issue. I hardwired the bike (ie took out a bunch of unnecessary wires), so I didn't figure the problem was there. After a few nights of testing and swapping parts from running bikes, I determined the internal ignition coil or armature was bad. I put in a known good one, only to find out that I now have a problem with either the points or condenser. Damn.

MLM Cali pipe on my Puch Newport

As I mentioned in my last post, I already installed the pipe. I'm super happy with it. I think it looks great. Now I just need to re-tune my bike to get the full potential out of this setup. Speaking of which, this is what I'm running:
65cc MetraKit
High compression head
19mm dellorto
Stock points
Hardwired

I can't remember what I have for gearing. I need to check that, overall I'm happy with it. It'll pull hills and it still has a decent top speed (45 mph with the Estoril).

Pics:

Estoril, you've been good to me...MLM upgrade

I've been feeling for quite a while that the Estoril has been holding me back. I thought about de-restricting it, but decided a Motion Left upgrade would be much cooler. Plus, when 1977 Mopeds ran their sale, I couldn't resist.

I went with the stainless Cali pipe. I thought about going polished stainless, but decided it would be too much.

Here are the pipes side by side. I already have it mounted on the bike. I'll grab a picture of that tomorrow.

Picked up a Hercules

A friend of mine has been looking for a bike. Unfortunately, I haven't had much luck finding her one...until now. She's new to the moped scene and I wanted something that would be reliable and fairly easy to start. The Hercules was my first bike and I absolutely loved it. I can only hope she enjoys this one as much as I enjoyed mine.

The paint is a little faded, but overall it is pretty clean.








Dirty carb. That will have to come off:


Interesting surprise in the headlight:


Nice wiring. It looks like I'll be hard wiring this bike. Now to find the schematic I need.

Parks and Wreck Creation Rally pics

We a great turnout for our first rally. We learned a lot over the weekend and I think next year will be even better.

Approximately 18 people showed up from Milwaukee, Madison, Chicago, and Iowa. As usual, there were a few breakdowns, but most of the group survived. It was a lot of fun having other fast bikes here to ride with and seeing/discussing other people's setups.

Pictures here:
http://leftovermopeds.com/images/rides/10.11-parksandwreck/index.htm

Staging at Allen Park:


Cody's bike...super clean:


Waiting for the ride to start:


Riding through Ottawa:




Lunchbeers in Utica:


Hiking at Starved Rock:




Nail in tire on the way back:


Good thing he had Gazelles:


End of Saturday's ride:


I met back up with the group for more riding on Sunday.

Here is Seb's bike. I love this thing. It's fast and looks like no other bike. It's janky, but it runs well.


The Ciao finally fired up and ran well...until it soft seized at 45+ mph on a long downhill stetch:


Gravel roads in all directions:


Ripping the country roads:




There just happened to be a car show in the same campground where everyone stayed.  We crashed it for a little while:


Thanks again for making the trip out everyone. I personally had a great time.

Radium City Riders Present: Parks and Wreck Creation 10.1.11

New GPS mount and top speed

I was using an older Garmin Etrex, but when I found out that the newer Garmin Nuvi handlebar mounts are only $10 shipped, I decided to pick up one of those. I already had the Nuvi and I knew it was much better than the Etrex. This was a no-brainer.

New low profile mount:


Installed:




After it cooled off last night, I decided to take the Newport out to see how it would do. On level ground with a little bit of wind at my back, I managed to get a new top speed. This is the first time I've made it above 45. I've been thinking about upgrading my Estoril exhaust to something from Motion Left. I'm wondering if that will push me even farther.

No more blown tail lights

I think I finally have my tail light issue fixed. For a long time the bike ran fine with no tail light issues whatsoever. Then last year I started blowing them all the time. It got to the point where I couldn't even make it down the street and they would pop. Well, that obviously wasn't going to work. So, I stepped it up to a 12V lighting coil to go with my 12V voltage regultor, and that seems to have done the trick.

Now I'm running:
12V lighting coil from Treats
12V voltage regulator from Treats
12V light bulbs front and rear
Both head light and tail light wired on the same lighting coil and through the regulator

I had great intentions of taking pictures during the installation process, but I guess I got caught up in getting it done and I forgot. So, this is all I have. :)

Riding along Lake Michigan

I brought my Newport with me on a short trip last weekend. I took a few hours on Saturday to ride near the lake in both Michian and Indiana. It was perfect riding weather and the bike ran flawlessly. No complaints here.

long ride

Since neither of us could make the Chicago rally, we decided to do our own local ride. This is the farthest outside of town that either of us have gone. It felt good. The trip was just over 20 miles.

We were hoping to get some footage with Josh's new GoPro HD, but the battery ran out just as we left. We'll get it next time.

For now, here are a couple of pictures.





Shortly after I left Josh's place, my bike just died on me and I had to pull over. I quickly realized that I was out of gas. I've done a lot of quick jaunts on this bike, but no major long rides, so I guess I never really knew what kind of range I could expect out of a tank of gas. It turns out I can only go about 20 miles before I hit the reserve. I think that works out to be a little over 30 mpg. Interesting.

BBQ and mopeds

I had a few friends over this weekend for a BBQ. I'm pretty sure everyone I know in town with a moped showed up. It was great to have that many bikes together. Unfortunately, it rained on us quite a bit...otherwise I'm sure we would have been ripping all over town.

points adjusting tool

I don't know about you, but I always used to dread adjusting points through that small window in the flywheel. You can never get the screwdriver flat on the screw that you need to loosen and you can never get the feeler gauge in there. And even if you do, you can't really tell if you got the gap set up properly or if you just moved the spring on the points enough to get the feeler gauge in there and the actual gap is only half of what it should be. Well, I had enough of that.

I picked up this $10 crusty flywheel on moped army.



I then cut out he middle section to use as a mock flywheel.



Now I have all kinds of access for adjusting points.



I finished off my work by putting degree tape on the actual flywheel. I'm planning to adjust the timing on the pinto this week with a timing light, in hopes of getting it to run better.