Gila tuning at Motion Left Mopeds

I've been struggling with getting my Gila'd Pinto to run properly. It was basically just dying around 30-35 mph. It wasn't ripping like it should. I played around with the jetting a bunch and didn't have any luck. So, I gave up and called Devin from Motion Left Mopeds. He said he was willing to help me out, but it had to be THIS weekend, because he is super busy. "Ok...I'll be there."

Devin was awesome. I loved his approach to working on the bike. He didn't fire it up and see what was going on with it. He started by putting it up on the bench and making things right...making it his way...the way he's learned by dialing in hundreds of these bikes over the last 7 years. He put a proper intake on and then dove right into the electrical stuff. We didn't even talk jetting until the end of the day.

And he was right...it was all electrical. My bike would start and run, but the spark was garbage. He said, "See that shit storm of blue in your points. That's bad." My points were basically arcing out all the time and that is why the bike wouldn't run any faster than 35. Once we got that figured out and set the timing with his super helpful tools, the bike was well on its way to being a ripper. Awesome.

Thanks for all the help, Devin. I had a blast hanging out with you guys.

finished the pinto seat

I cut the heads of the hinges off and took the spring out.



While trying to figure out what my next step was, I flipped the bracket/post around to see what that would look like. Well, it seemed to look pretty good. I was thinking that I would need to cut the post off and directly weld it to the pan, but with the bracket still in tact, I knew it would be much more stable. I test fit it on the bike like that and quickly saw that it was going to be just what I needed.



All I had to do was grind some of the paint off and the galvanizing on the seat post (if you don't know...that stuff is extremely bad for when welding). I then welded it up.



Here it is on the bike. It's low, but not so low that the front part of the seat is uncomfortable on your junk. It'll also give me some room to fabricate a license plate mount between the seat and the tire.

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.