Metrakit soft seize

As I was cranking along at a fairly high rate of speed at 2:30 AM on the Friday night of the Lafeyeti Rally, I was feeling pretty good about my Newport, until it soft seized. I initially thought I just hit a cool, dense pocket of air, because the bike has been really consistent for a few years now, but a comment that Responsible Jon said made me rethink that. He said I should retard the timing a little bit. Hmmm...I haven't checked my timing for quite a while.

After watching Devin from MLM work on my Pinto timing, I realized I should probably consider buying a metric dial indicator. I picked this one up on ebay for about $40 shipped. I also grabbed the adapter setup from Motion Pro for about $20 shipped.



With the new tools I found out that my bike was setup for the spark to happen at 1.8mm BTDC. That's way too far advanced for an E50. I backed it off to just under 1.2mm and called it good. It was definitely nice having the proper tools for this.

After I finished that, I pulled the piston/cylinder off of the bike. This is what it looked like after 3 soft seizes during the rally. I definitely need a new piston.



I ordered up a new one from Treats...the next size up. I'm hoping to get it this week, so I can find a local machine shop to bore out the cylinder.

Lafayeti Rally Pictures

Here are all the pictures I took. I'll highlight a few below, but if you want to look through the entire group click the link.

Lafayeti Rally Pics

Three of us left Radium City a little later than planned friday night.



We rolled into Lafayette around 10:30. We immediately unloaded the bikes and headed for the pinball arcade. There were a few people hanging around, but not many. So, we hit up Lafayette Brewing for a couple of beers.

When we got back to Phil’s house that night we heard there was a group of people heading out for a LONG night ride. Since we arrived a little late for the other night rides, we decided to join this one. It was definitely worth it. There were lots of fast bikes on the ride and destination was amazing. We basically rode way out into the country (~15 miles) and parked at the base of one of the windmills. I have never been that close to one of those before. We have a bunch of them around here, but I haven’t taken the time to stop and see them up close. I had no idea they were so loud. It was a little creepy being that close…it was the combination of the huge size, the red glow of the light, and the fact that we were in the middle of nowhere.

On the way back into town from there, on a pitch black country road, we hit a cooler patch of air and my bike didn’t like that. It immediately soft seized with no warning. Damn. Fortunately, Rich, one of the Lafayetis, was nice enough to stop and make sure I was ok. I really had no idea what I was going to do. We were miles from anywhere and it was probably 2:30 AM. He suggested that I jump on my bike and he would push me back into town. Push me?! Really?! Sure enough…his bike was a champ and it managed to haul him, me, and my bike the 3-ish miles back to town. Crazy! Thanks again, Rich.

Here’s his bike:



The next morning I took my metra 65 apart to find this:



It wasn’t that bad, so I cleaned it up, made sure the rings weren’t stuck, and put it back together.

Kyle’s hobbit also had some issues, so he pulled his carb and cleaned it up.



Best chase van ever. It could use a bigger idle jet though.






The long ride started at the park on Saturday morning.





I made it about ½ way through this ride and the bike seized again. It was lonely when the pack of ~50 bikes left me. Again, I had no idea where I was or what I was going to do. Fortunately, Brian, another Lafayeti, stopped by to make sure the van was going to pick me up.



Loading more bikes, including our 2nd Radium City breakdown, in the chase van.



Swimming hole:



Seb’s bike broke down right as he rolled into that park. Instead of admitting defeat and riding in the chase van, he opted to ride dubs with Justin on basically a stock Maxi. I’m not sure how they got separated from the group, but they ended up hanging with us the rest of the afternoon. It was super funny to watch those guys.





Pizza back at Rich’s place:



Phil making Mountain Dew Baja Blast:



Raffle items:



We won the raffle tickets themselves, which will be great for our rally:



Playing stumps:



Since all of our bikes were broken down at this point, none of us attended the adventure ride. Instead we took all of the drunk people to the Ben Hur.



There we played pool and drank PBR for several more hours.



Overall we had a fantastic trip. The Lafayetis were great hosts and I don’t think it could have worked out much better than it did, despite our bike issues. We will definitely go back!

Lafayetis rally this weekend

I'm really looking forward to getting out there and riding mopeds all weekend. It'll be great to see everyone and hang out. I'll be riding my Newport, so if you see it, stop by to say hello.

too far gone?

I'm thinking yes.

Ride and Hike

I posted this on the forum, but forgot to throw it up on my blog.

A friend of mine from Ohio came out for a visit. He wanted to spend some time riding, so I gathered up a few extras and we hit the road.

Here's his Newport:


He did a great job with some of his subtle cosmetic upgrades. The bike is really clean:


I found a stock Hercules for this girl recently, but she procrastinated for several months and didn't get it registered yet. She ended riding my loaner Newport for the day and had a fantastic time.


Moped flower for locking purposes. It worked out well.


There was so much water there this time. There was just no way to stay dry.








Lunch in town...great way to end our day.