Derbi TT Variant

I came home for Thanksgiving to Nebraska, and had eye-balled craigslist for something to go look at, but all I could find was a nice set of AMF Roadmasters about two hours away. I decided I wasn't buying any mopeds this trip, and then my sister called me from an auction and said "Hey, there is a moped here". Nebraska never had any dealers other than Honda and the occasional Vespa, so I was expecting a Bravo or Hobbit, and I asked what kind it was, so she replied it says "DERBI" and I said "I'll be right there!" We said a lot. I had to stand around all day and wait for this thing to go on bid because there was no schedule for the auction, but after about 5 hours of standing, it was time to bid on "the yellow scooter". The bid started at $500, and no one made any noise, and I let the auctioneer get down to $75 before I made an offer, and then it was back and forth between me and some soccer mom. I scowled at her, and I think my tough wrangler flannel shirt showed that I wasn't an auction rookie, so she backed off and I got a heck of a good deal on it. It's a piston port, and it's all complete, including a very odd dealer extra, a Derbi sissy bar. Look at that! My first Derbi! I think this ones a keeper.

DeLuxe pt 2

I decided I wanted to powder coat after visiting those fine gents at MotoMatic this summer. Any way, people who spend any amount of time with Devin from Motion Left Mopeds will also be able to sing praises of powder coating in moped applications. Since I don't have the big fab tools to take two ovens and stick them together like MotoMatic, I wasn't sure how to build an oven on the cheap. Then one night I sat up in bed with the answer that I had dreamed, and immediately got on craigslist and started searching for file cabinets. I found a nice 5 drawer legal size unit, which is about as big as they come with out going lateral, and big enough to hang a maxi frame in. Then I got a free electric oven, pulled the coils, thermostat, controllers and then chopped down the wiring harness removing the flim flam and what nots. I chopped the faces off the drawers and welded hinges on. A bit of fireplace seal ropes plug up any gaps, and with both coils running at the same time I can heat this little leaky hot box up to right around 400 deg. Very simple to make, and it fits just about anything moped related fine.

The tank pictured is one I'm shooting for Mrs. Rocketman, and it is actually a beautiful teal color.

Also, to help keep costs down, find cheap labor to run your blast cabinet.

DeLuxe!

Here are a few photo's to keep the blog from getting bogged down into the murky death of stagnancy that most suffer from. What have I been doing lately? This summer I took a trip to visit those fine fellows at MotoMatic Mopeds, and was impressed by their operation. It looked like they were having so much fun I wanted to be a part of it. So I got one of these, and built myself an oven that can be disguised as a file cabinet or robot, and now I'm doing this! Huzza!

Motobecane 50v

I've got a limp pipe. Moby's have a square or round swing arm depending on type. The fine folks at Ninja include two sets of brackets to accomodate either swing arm. Except in my case, when instead of two round and two square brackets, I got one round and one square. So that means no more Moby for the day, and now I have to go down to the shop and fab up a little round guy. Or see if any MF has an extra one laying around. Almost ready to ride!