Look the Fuck out.

JJ's race SF. Holy god.

Small Frame Body Work

The first track day is this Saturday. My frame came back from the metal cleaners Monday. It was worse then I thought under all the bondo.

JJ gave me a crash course in Metal working.

Re shaping the engine side cowel.

The entire rear end was twisted and shifted off to the right.
Whatever he's doing up there, it worked great.

I make some pretty cool faces when not wearing protective eye wear.

Welding up all of the tears.

Tears are welded.

Today I grind down all of the welds. Skim coat a small bit of bondo, and spray primer.

MB5 Suspension on Motobecane

Since we put the MB5 Front end on this moby, we decided to make the swing arm fit with the matching rear wheel. It's quite a bit longer and the sprocket sits quite a bit further out from the wheel. JJ did some nice welding.



Clip on Handlebars made from an old triple tree top, and some pipe. All JJ's idea.
Again, nice welds, JJ.

Pretty nice so far. The rear sprocket holds a 420 chain. The front sprocket holds a 415 chain.
A dished Moby rear sprocket welded to the stock MB5 sprocket fixes the chain alignment, and chain pitch problems.

My LeoVince SF pipe. Powdered red for practice.

SF engine coming together. New shift cross, rear axle bearing, gasket set, and clutch will get this ready for the year.

I've been busy, and my bench shows it.

One week left before the first race, and my scooter hasn't been painted.

Randoms from last week

The Orphans stop by on Thursdays to work on their race bikes.


JJ cutting swingarm mounts off a moby frame...

...To make room for a MB5 Swing arm.

Mykitech Pulley and the beginnings of my future beer belly.

Small Frame Vespa Clutches

This is the clutch that I pulled out of my engine. It has one year of daily driving on it. My engine isn't putting out anything close to the power of most of the bikes coming to the track this year. It wont be. I want to ride it on the street and keep it together after i'm done with a race. This being said, if I do anything impressive in this years scooter racing class, I'll find some sort of riding ability in me.
These clutches have three thin plates, a cork lining, and a wimpy spring. Perfect for a stock 125 that is intended to max out around 50mph.

This year i'll be running a 4 plate clutch with six springs. Six springs even out the tension and provide quite a bit more tension. The cork is replaced with carbon on this guy. Hopefully it will hold up against the type of riding i'll be doing.

The woodruff key couldn't be any smaller.

Trip to Seattle

Last weekend I went up to Seattle to work with Michael Mike. Emily came too. He's used his large brain and large tools to get a standard 150 scooter clutch on to a doppler pulley.
Basically, I can spend $450 on a Mykitech pulley, 200 on a Doppley pulley, or make one. I didn't have my camera with me, so this post will feature high-quality cell phone pictures.

Thanks Mike.

Columbus Josh was there welding a giant fucking riser plate to the cases for a SF Vespa. It will be interesting to see what kind of jug he's putting on it.

The group of Mosquito Fleeters that rode down to mike mikes shop with me got bored quickly. We rode mopeds back to Ballard/Greenwood to grill meat and have a bonfire.
Brendan's clutch bell exploded in Downtown Seattle, and we left him there to get a ride.

His bike still looks cool though.

Powder Coating Oven Part 2

I stole this idea from Responsible Jon's moped blog. Straight up Stole it.

I got a file cabinet off CL, took all of the controls and heating elements out of my oven.





Maybe I shouldn't be showing pictures of this mess...


Plasma cutter makes quick work out of all the sliders inside the file cabinet.


I have lots of work to do. Next is to make a door, wrap the whole thing in fiberglass ceiling tiles, mount up the heating elements and wire it all together.

3/2/10

First off, I love the guys at 1977 mopeds. They go out of their way for me all of the time, and speak with me almost daily. I currently have three giant orders somewhere in the mail coming from them. They don't have the buying power to keep everything in stock, so they drop ship a lot of stuff direct from the dealer. Still, I wish these boxes would finally get here. Most of this bike is in the mail somewhere.


This started as a Le Moped frame. It's getting a front end, swingarm, and wheels from an MB5. The swingarm is in the mail somewhere.


Awesome. Brand new Doppler crank from Treats.


The crank inside of some Polini cases. Polini kit and hi comp head.
That's a big intake.


Basic maintenance is less fun then building fast race bikes, but it pays rent.
Here's a wire that got cut inside of a ciao fender. Who can guess how much time I wasted trying to find this?

These carbs are Shit. The hole for the idle jet is clogged up with bits of bad aluminum casting. I've ordered three and two were bad in some way.