Tomos Moped Clutch Spring Installation

I got a set of stiff springs for Tomos and having never changed the springs before found it to be quite a challenge with heavier springs.  I found a method that seems to work pretty easily, so here it is.  The first thing the performance springs needed was to bend the ends to match the black stock springs.

I put them barely in the vice and used my hands to bend the spring carefully by the base until the ends were standing up like a hook.  Once I hooked the ends together I squeezed them a little tighter so they wouldn't easily come apart. 

I clamped the second speed clutch by the attached gear, and used a bolt to hold the first speed down.

Then press the spring into the first keeper and install a locking pliers.  It doesn't have to be that tight.  Push the spring into the second keeper and install your second locking pliers.  I installed the hooked section of the spring in the middle of the first and second keepers.  Take two long flat screw drivers, round shaft work best, and set them against the clutch arm right on top of the third keeper.  Pull the screw drivers back gently and the spring slides down to the top of the keeper.

 

Now just twist the screw drivers so the blades force the spring out over the keeper and push it down if it doesn't quite fall into place. 

It's all in the placement and rotation of the screw drivers.  If you set them wider apart you can't get the spring to fall into the slot because there isn't room for the screw drivers to be out of the way.  By placing the screw drivers against the shoe, it is solid and won't budge against them, but if you try to pry against the keeper you are going to bend it and have a bad time.  The little twist pushed the spring out to clear the keeper without having to pull on it any more.  Easy as pie. 

Bing carb rebuild

When I stored my free spirit for the winter, it was leaking gas out of the carb pretty bad when the petcock would be left on.  No big deal, turn it off, but when you forget, all of a sudden your garage smells like gas.  I had a guy contact me wanting to buy a bike, so I sold him this one, only to remember that it was a dribbler, so I told him to come back in two days and it would be ready for him.  I have to hit the tank with acid too, because I stored it dry and it got all flash rusty.  Here are some blurry fish-eye shots of the carb, I love new gaskets, floats and needles with a tip of viton.

Motron gets his bars chopped

 I decided the tall bars on the Motron are just too wide, so I pulled out the pipe cutter, and removed 1 3/4 inches out of the middle. I tig welded them back together, and the took a half inch of the ends of each bar, bringing everything nice, tall and narrow.  Looks good, feels good, glad I finally did it.

Tire changing stand

When I bought out Everett's old moped shop, along with the parts came a large variety of factory and home made tools.  Some are easy to identify, some take a bit to figure out what they are for, and some I have no idea.  This one was pretty easy.  It is a Maxi swingarm welded to a motorcycle sprocket, with some notches ground into the tensioner part of the swingarm, so an axle can rest in it easily.  It has a mobile arm attached to it with a little threaded foot to accept a dial indicator so you can true wheels.  Pretty slick.  I'm using it as a tire changing stand.  Hang your new tube in the swing arm, set your wheel in place and tighten the axle down so it can't escape.  With the sprocket clamped to the work bench, your tire stays in place wonderfully as you pry with the tire irons to remove the bead and withdraw the tube.  Then you simply bring the new tube up, tuck it in, and use your hands to finish the job.  If you were replacing the tire as well, you would have to remove the wheel to get the old tire out completely and insert the new one, so a bit more work, but it is nice to not be wrestling around the garage with a wheel in my hands pinned to the floor under my knees. 

Mopeds before the internet

I love to think about what it would have been like to be of moped age in 1977, wishing to have one and going to your local library to check out any books they had on mopeds so you could read all about them, and then buying a book on mopeds just so you could convince your mom she should totally buy you a moped.  You pick out the one you want (Puch Maxi Sport, $525) and she finally buys it for you.  You get to enjoy it for about a week because you mixed your oil at 128:1.  Where ever this book came from, there is a seized Maxi Sport in the garage. 

Out and About

Just waiting for winter to finish, Brian and I caught a nice day to take our Minarelli V1 bikes out for a spin.  I love my 58cc DR kit, runs very smooth with a 14:12 and goes about 40mph.  Perfecto.

Polish Aluminum

I've got this Motron I've been dreaming about, and I pulled an aluminum V1 cover out of my giant stock of awesome parts.

  It looked good, but it wasn't shiny enough.  I took about an hour today and went after it with 200, 400, 800, 1000, 00 steel wool, aluminum polish then 0000 steel wool.
It isn't that hard to do a mediocre job polishing stuff, but boy to you get a sweat going.  There was some pitting that I didn't get out, I should have started at 100 grit perhaps, but it's shiny enough for me.

I fried some stuff

Some of the Yetis came over the other day and we had a fry party where we celebrate all things delicious and cooked in oil.  We fried up some sausage links and patties, dipped them in pancake batter, then deep fried them for delicious breakfast treats.  Then we made donuts and funnel cakes.  This has nothing to do with mopeds other than this is some seriously good breakfast, which is probably one of my favorite parts of moped rallies, eating breakfast Sunday morning.

Derbi starter clutches

I picked up another yellow Derbi TT this summer.  Found it in a barn out in rural Indiana, and it had been fixed many times by the farmer who owned it.  The seat was screwed on to the seat bracket with self tapping sheet metal screws, and it has a motorcycle tail light.  I finally decided to pay it forward, since it sat in my shed for about 3 months without me touching it.  So I traded it to Travis for a Motron, and we began to fix the problems with the Derbi.  He cleaned the carb, set the points and replaced the fuel line, and it fired up and ran. 

Judging by the horrible scraping sounds and how it would not idle at a stop, but would idle when you would just start it, we inspected the starter clutches.   The face of the clutch where the starter clutches drag was worn away from metal on metal contact, it was depressed about .2mm from where it should have been. 

 The pads were completely gone, a spring was broken, and a large amount of clutch bell was worn away from this bike being endlessly started on the farm by 14 year old boys.

 Since we didn't have any new derbi starting clutches, we just raided a hobbit set, and the only modifications it took to install them was drilling them with a 7/16ths drill bit.

  Here is a shot of the hobbit starting clutches in a derbi starting clutch.  Pretty sure that was the size, anyway.  Now it starts much better and idles fine since the shoes are not dragging the engine constantly. 

Honda Hobbit PA50 Rear variator and misc

Hello long time blog readers.  Long time, no read.  Here are some pictures that never amounted to a reason to post.  I sold a Hobbit LTD to my friend Max, and then he discovered a clever way to disassemble the rear variator using a planting crate.  It wedges the cheeks open nicely.  You can see the cam on the left was badly worn and in need of replacement.

What is a hobbit LTD?  It's a PA50II in black with hologram HONDA decals.  They are awesome.

Greg smashed his Austro Diamler forks on adventure ride, so we straightened them out.  Some miss information is passed around that these are hydraulic, but they are actually just very good spring loaded forks.  Nothing a little time in the press wont fix.  Very sturdy.

Don't get your blog hopes up, but I might update this thing a bit more frequently, like say... monthly.  See you in December.

I just needed to write this down

I'm going to make an intake with tapped holes for mounting and use set screws to put in place for that extra flush look. I was thinking about this as I have been using Tomos A3 headers to make intakes recently and they are such large OD that they require a good bit of filling to let a regular socket head cap screw pass. It was an intake for my loyal pp derbi, which is receiving a new metra kit jug. Upon removal of the stock jug, I realized it had a giant base gasket, leaving nearly two mm of gap between tdc and the head. No wonder that bike never seemed very fast, it was restricted to 20mph when I got it with an intake washer, and also had a bracket on it for an orange flag. I strongly suspect it was originally from Iowa before it made its way over to Nebraska where I picked it up. I might just throw the stock jug back on for the time being to see I'm correct on the speed factor. With 15SHA I and pipe I was only able to squeak 36mph from it.

Old things are better than new

Yeti in the New Year

After a nice 3 month break from working on mopeds, I'm back at it. A nice little vacation from fixing bikes left me with exactly one runner. I picked up two more Puchs at auction this January. One was a rigid free spirit, with which I have fallen into vibrat-y love. The full rigid is very enjoyable, and after removing the thick head gasket, upjet the stock 14mm bing and a proma pipe, it goes a screaming 33mph with killer low end, thanks to the 14x45 gearing. I've got a nice Demm Smiley tank to put on it as soon as the petcock arrives. This bike will be my rally backup, and guest rally loaner.

I spent some time working on Rickety Cricket, my freespirit with negrini tank. Got the hydraulic forks installed and the disc brake is ready to stop me. I'll finish the tank mounts soon, and begin to recover the seat. This bike should be blasting with a Kstar70cc kit and simo pipe.

The Derbi was coaxed back to life after the primary coil took a dump at bomb bourbon run. The pietcard cdi was pretty easy to install, although the timing didn't match up with the woodruff key, so I'm running sans key with the stator rotated about 45 deg clockwise. I had to hook up my timing light to get it at 1.8mm btdc. I might scoot it up a bit to 1.6mm, but for now it is working great.

The weather has been so warm that we have been riding bunches this January and February.
See you guys all in Nashville in a few more weeks!