1979 Maxi

With this small ped-venture, I will be working on several bikes at one time. Here is a frame, generously sold to me by none other than Tim R. from TBS. It looks to be quite straight, and it is my first golden maxi. It won't, however, be gold for long.



I will strip this one down while I'm at my in-laws over Christmas. Father-in-law Bob has a nice sandblasting cabinet big enough to fit a maxi frame into. I think this frame I might try an unusual color scheme on. I'm thinking new VW Bug green with a soft white fender, shocks, & chrome. The chrome on the side rails and shocks has slight pitting, same with the lower forks, so I was thinking to have them powder coated as well in the soft white. I'm not sure if a two color bike would look nice or not. I do like chrome, but re-chroming is too expensive, and pits take away from a professional finished look of the bike. I would, of course, paint the side covers and plastics white as well. I think it could look pretty good, topped off with a big white saddle seat. It makes me excited to think about these beautiful bikes coming to life! I will also be experimenting with a new powder coater for this frame. I have been trucking my frames up to Elkhart and having Devin at Motion Left let his coater do them for me, but the drive up there is a bit too expensive to do all the time, plus I don't want to overload Devin with my jobs since he is plenty busy building his own MLM bikes. There is a place here in Anderson I'm going to get a quote on, and if it is decent, give them a spin. I've also heard of a place in Portland, Indiana that I might try out.

This tank will need an acid bath. Any bike I sell will need a clean tank. My own bikes, I don't care so much, but I doubt anyone would be thrilled about an ugly tank.

Here is a Puch E50 made in 1986 which means 3 shoe clutch and roller bearing clutch from the factory! Also, it has only 3 engine bearings and used 3 same sized seals. I'm very fond of these motors, and an 86 E50 was the first engine I built, and I still ride it, the fastest bike in Anderson by a long shot.
I do think, however, that this one is going to need a new piston.

It came to be in this unassembled mess, and it is mostly there, sans the flywheel. If I'm going to get a new piston, I might as well put a kit on this engine. I'm kind of tired of Polini, I have two of them, and they are fast and familiar, but I want to do something different. I've built a few Metra65's, and they are nice, but I've never tried to make a real fast one, latebird style. I might give it a go, or perhaps something else, but I don't know about making the jump to 75cc. Then again, I have been lusting after French bikes since the beginning of my moped tenure, and I have quite a few go fast goodies stuck away for my wonderful 40t waiting patiently in the garage, so perhaps I'll go with the familiar Polini or Metra, and then move into exploring with AV10