2 quick things:
1) I have some heads for sale on Moped Army buy/sell
Aftermarket 'treats' Hi comp 50 and 70, $25 shipped. The 50 is in perfect cond. The 70 was a little beat up but i re-faced it on the lathe.
Batavus M48 hi comp 50 cc. I think i decked this about .025". They can go a lot further, but this is definitely a noticeable gain especially on the upper midrange where these things have no power whatsoever.
#B) Thanks so much to everyone voting for the Cranks this round of MA branch review. Two handsome and fabulous Mosquito Fleeters even put us in their blogs. The warm fuzzies are just flying around the interwebs, getting stuck in the nooks and crannies and in my butter There are a lot of REALLY AWESOME GANGS applying for MA Branch Status this year and we Cranks are so honored to have the chance to apply. Thanks for all the kind words and supports MA, hopefully we'll get in and can continue spreading the love and warm fuzzies.
See you midwest cats in louisville at thanksgiving!
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Super Sketchy Brah.
Seeing as Cristophe put up some sketches of far off projects (maybe his isn't very far off) I guess its ok for me to show you what i've been doodling when i should be doing my homework.
Maybe recent posts on the forum will tip someone off as to what this is... I've been thinking a lot lately about finally building a top tank. MB5 or maybe CBR125 forks, swingarm (monoshock) wheels and a motor to make it worth it. Something I could practically and reliably ride on the highway or race on some of the local underground TT races. I love the idea of using scooter parts, especially variators so i can fix the engine. I definitely get off on the engineering and pioneering aspect of this kind of thing, and it would be a blast to build my own engine, do some finite element analysis (a class which i am taking and loving the crap out of right now) and have a crankcase CNC machined from billet. Send out for some heat treating... the works.
Who knows if anything will ever come of it, but it never hurts to dream. Maybe Project 'MOPED FACTORY PHASE 2: Return of the Profits' will net a little extra walking around money while leaving me with some spare time. Ha yeah right.
Maybe recent posts on the forum will tip someone off as to what this is... I've been thinking a lot lately about finally building a top tank. MB5 or maybe CBR125 forks, swingarm (monoshock) wheels and a motor to make it worth it. Something I could practically and reliably ride on the highway or race on some of the local underground TT races. I love the idea of using scooter parts, especially variators so i can fix the engine. I definitely get off on the engineering and pioneering aspect of this kind of thing, and it would be a blast to build my own engine, do some finite element analysis (a class which i am taking and loving the crap out of right now) and have a crankcase CNC machined from billet. Send out for some heat treating... the works.
Who knows if anything will ever come of it, but it never hurts to dream. Maybe Project 'MOPED FACTORY PHASE 2: Return of the Profits' will net a little extra walking around money while leaving me with some spare time. Ha yeah right.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Ch-ch-changes
Ugh, i'm obviously not a graphic designer, and aside from being able to slang HTML reasonably well, i'm not a pro website 'make-look-gooder' kinda guy, but the colors and format and stuff on this blog are really gross and make me not want to read it myself.
so i made some changes, might actually look worse now, but who knows. I should just have a blank page up with some text, but i'm too lazy/busy to even do that.
i'm machining heads and making parts like crazy this week, trying to correct the proportion of internet mopeds to real life mopeds. hopefully by next week some new stuff will be in stock at treats, or at least re-stocked... sorry to everyone who has been waiting on goodies.
so i made some changes, might actually look worse now, but who knows. I should just have a blank page up with some text, but i'm too lazy/busy to even do that.
i'm machining heads and making parts like crazy this week, trying to correct the proportion of internet mopeds to real life mopeds. hopefully by next week some new stuff will be in stock at treats, or at least re-stocked... sorry to everyone who has been waiting on goodies.
Monday, October 11, 2010
Puegeot Power!
In other words, the Peugeot is running well, finally! The last time I blarged it was way off, but turns out not so much really. Four stroking in the midrange had me dropping the needle all the way down lean. The bike was trying to tell me something was wrong because it kept puking out the throttle cable. Finally in an act of desperation I tried putting the needle medium-rich and now it is running beautifully.
I moved the timing a couple degrees off Shaw's suggestion of 15-17 BTDC, which might be wrong now giving me lousy low end, but who knows, I did port the cylinder pretty aggressively, plus I haven't tuned the clutch or the variator yet.
Here's how she's sitting right now.
The pipe clearance is dead on.
The porting was strictly 'seat of the pants'... I stayed pretty conservative because this is supposed to be getting set up for my girlfriend, but stock porting on these is pretty weak. I figure I can make up the loss of low end by tuning the clutch /variator, because right now when that clutch grabs it almost stalls the bike.
Yep yep, pretty good stuff. Gonna be gettin' smashed this week, Wednesday I have 2, 2 hour midterms that are going to crush me. I probably have at least 10-15 hours of learnin' to do by then. Maybe thursday and friday i'll finally be able to dig myself out of this hole and make some magic happen. New developments on the Moped Factory front are in the works, but i'm pretty much broke so it is making purchasing raw materials difficult/impossible.
I moved the timing a couple degrees off Shaw's suggestion of 15-17 BTDC, which might be wrong now giving me lousy low end, but who knows, I did port the cylinder pretty aggressively, plus I haven't tuned the clutch or the variator yet.
Here's how she's sitting right now.
 |
| From Puegeot |
The pipe clearance is dead on.
 |
| From Puegeot |
The porting was strictly 'seat of the pants'... I stayed pretty conservative because this is supposed to be getting set up for my girlfriend, but stock porting on these is pretty weak. I figure I can make up the loss of low end by tuning the clutch /variator, because right now when that clutch grabs it almost stalls the bike.
 |
| From Puegeot |
Yep yep, pretty good stuff. Gonna be gettin' smashed this week, Wednesday I have 2, 2 hour midterms that are going to crush me. I probably have at least 10-15 hours of learnin' to do by then. Maybe thursday and friday i'll finally be able to dig myself out of this hole and make some magic happen. New developments on the Moped Factory front are in the works, but i'm pretty much broke so it is making purchasing raw materials difficult/impossible.
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Slavin'
School is kicking my ass.
The maxi blew out the brass bushing on the end of the crankshaft (after 15-20k miles of abuse) and for some reason i cant seem to break the counter-shaft nut off to get at it. So i've been riding the peugeot, which is running better but still really crummy. Dead spots all over the power band, very little power. I ported the cylinder a little bit just opening the exhaust and eyebrowing the transfers, which pulled up the top end but now my low end really sucks. Its jetted at about an 80, with the needle all the way lean, and running really wierd.
I think its definitely time to re-wind the ignition coil. Shaw suggested i just cut off the outer windings, which would probably work well, but i'm going to kick it up a notch while i have everything apart and re-wind it with heavier gauge wire and maybe a few more turns. Hopefully that will solve all my problems, but who knows. I'm not sure what stock compression is in these, but it feels pretty good. I might try milling the head a little bit, but its not high on my list of priorities.
I needed to take a break from homework a couple nights ago so i made this... pretty much sums up what my life has been about the last 3 or 4 weeks.
The maxi blew out the brass bushing on the end of the crankshaft (after 15-20k miles of abuse) and for some reason i cant seem to break the counter-shaft nut off to get at it. So i've been riding the peugeot, which is running better but still really crummy. Dead spots all over the power band, very little power. I ported the cylinder a little bit just opening the exhaust and eyebrowing the transfers, which pulled up the top end but now my low end really sucks. Its jetted at about an 80, with the needle all the way lean, and running really wierd.
I think its definitely time to re-wind the ignition coil. Shaw suggested i just cut off the outer windings, which would probably work well, but i'm going to kick it up a notch while i have everything apart and re-wind it with heavier gauge wire and maybe a few more turns. Hopefully that will solve all my problems, but who knows. I'm not sure what stock compression is in these, but it feels pretty good. I might try milling the head a little bit, but its not high on my list of priorities.
I needed to take a break from homework a couple nights ago so i made this... pretty much sums up what my life has been about the last 3 or 4 weeks.
Monday, September 13, 2010
Boys of fall
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| From saltyfest |
I remember being a kid and really hating fall. The beginning of school, the end of summer, weather getting cold. A real drag. Lately this has been changing for me, I really have come to love fall. Dry air, a chance to wear all my snazzy sweaters and cold weather duds, and finally camping without having sweaty sleeping bag stuck to you.
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| From saltyfest |
Last weekend was truly the best of fall in wisconsin. SaltyFest 2 was all that makes mopeds great, with good friends, cheap booze, beautiful country riding and, oh yeah, 100s of cars getting smashed. Not enough you say? How about this FREAKIN JET CAR!
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| From saltyfest |
Oh yeah, its melting two cars stacked on top of each other. MELTING THEM! They dont do this in france, son! Only one country has figure 8 BUS RACING!
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| From saltyfest |
Figure 8 Trailer racing! Some crazy dude jumping a ford tempo off a moving ramp at like 60 miles per hour. THIS IS THE USA BABY! Where's my bruce springsteen when i get all jacked up on america 'n stuff.
(2).jpg)
Christine and 'her girls' got radical on some shots!
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| From saltyfest |
We drank like 20 pitchers, or maybe more like ten but it was a lot. Oh yeah, fireworks too. Super rad weekend, thanks again Salty!
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Two steps forward, four steps back
Awesome wednesday night ride last night.... well not super awesome because I'm still pretty sick, and was being kinda a party pooper, but the puegeot finally made its Wednesday debut and was cooking along pretty well, definitely keeping up with the pack. Its really hard to get a feel for how fast this bike is because it is so quiet and doesn't really rev out or have the raw torque i'm used to from my maxi. The engine is eerily quiet at full speed, which is probably somewhere in the upper 30's.
It should have a lot more in it with proper tuning. I'm also not sure what the exhaust port looks like in these things stock, but the way it dies on the top end, i wouldn't be surprised if it was pretty restricted. Seeing as most accounts have them doing about 35 all bone stock, i've probably got a fair bit of tuning to do before its running at full potential.
In other news of awesome, the Sachs is running. I spent about an hour on it yesterday. The spark was weak and intermittent so I poked around a little bit and found that the internal coil unit was way too far away from the flywheel. I popped the flywheel off and used my masking tape trick to get the coils crazy close for maximum magnetic fluxin'. There is no flywheel key in this because i got it from crazy euro kids who dont believe in that sort of thing, so the timing is kindof a guess. There are timing marks on the flywheel but who knows if its in the right place. Either way everything looks really good and its now blasting out a fat blue spark.
True to form for this awesome kit, it fires up halfway through the first kick. Even with a massive air leak due to a missing manifold bolt it popped right to life. For some reason the chain i took off it is way too short... cant imagine how that happened seeing as it should be the same exact gears and motor from 1 speed to 2 speed, but somehow i'm about 7 links short so i decided to go ahead and put the tomos rear sprocket on. At first glance these looked compatable, but trying to fit them i found the tomos mounting bolt holes are a smaller diameter pattern- crap!
Since this is a fairly important part, i dont really want to fudge it so i think i'm going to rotate the sprocket 90 degrees and drill a whole new bolt pattern using the indexing table on the mill. I might also upgrade to a slightly larger bolt (maybe SAE rather than metric) because the little cast nubs inside the hub that are supposed to hold the nut when you tighten the bolt are all ground off from having changed this sprocket many times. All they do now is prevent the use of a socket wrench to hold them.
Either way, a productive day. Not sure if i'll have time to get both the puegeot dialed in (including switching out handlebars) and finish buttoning up the sachs all in one day before Saltyfest this weekend, but it looks like this chain/sprocket thing is going to dick me... oh well, looks like i'm moving the release date on the sachs back to bombourbon run. That will give me time to design/build the ultra-luxo-cruiser long seat and modular luggage system i've been fantasizing.
It should have a lot more in it with proper tuning. I'm also not sure what the exhaust port looks like in these things stock, but the way it dies on the top end, i wouldn't be surprised if it was pretty restricted. Seeing as most accounts have them doing about 35 all bone stock, i've probably got a fair bit of tuning to do before its running at full potential.
In other news of awesome, the Sachs is running. I spent about an hour on it yesterday. The spark was weak and intermittent so I poked around a little bit and found that the internal coil unit was way too far away from the flywheel. I popped the flywheel off and used my masking tape trick to get the coils crazy close for maximum magnetic fluxin'. There is no flywheel key in this because i got it from crazy euro kids who dont believe in that sort of thing, so the timing is kindof a guess. There are timing marks on the flywheel but who knows if its in the right place. Either way everything looks really good and its now blasting out a fat blue spark.
True to form for this awesome kit, it fires up halfway through the first kick. Even with a massive air leak due to a missing manifold bolt it popped right to life. For some reason the chain i took off it is way too short... cant imagine how that happened seeing as it should be the same exact gears and motor from 1 speed to 2 speed, but somehow i'm about 7 links short so i decided to go ahead and put the tomos rear sprocket on. At first glance these looked compatable, but trying to fit them i found the tomos mounting bolt holes are a smaller diameter pattern- crap!
Since this is a fairly important part, i dont really want to fudge it so i think i'm going to rotate the sprocket 90 degrees and drill a whole new bolt pattern using the indexing table on the mill. I might also upgrade to a slightly larger bolt (maybe SAE rather than metric) because the little cast nubs inside the hub that are supposed to hold the nut when you tighten the bolt are all ground off from having changed this sprocket many times. All they do now is prevent the use of a socket wrench to hold them.
Either way, a productive day. Not sure if i'll have time to get both the puegeot dialed in (including switching out handlebars) and finish buttoning up the sachs all in one day before Saltyfest this weekend, but it looks like this chain/sprocket thing is going to dick me... oh well, looks like i'm moving the release date on the sachs back to bombourbon run. That will give me time to design/build the ultra-luxo-cruiser long seat and modular luggage system i've been fantasizing.
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