A Sticky Situation!

The first Puch I ever loved was a JCPenny Swinger2. Something about the lines just makes me love them. When I got my hands on a Swinger1, it was like meeting a younger, hotter sister of the Swinger2. Part of the appeal of these mopeds to me are the awesomely 70's name and boldly proclaimed so largely on the side of the tank. When I had the Swinger1 powder coated, that meant I had to say good bye to the decals. Well, I got a hold of a reproduction set and I'm stoked. They look awesome, and I took some pictures of the installation process, since I neglect my moped blog being in School again and also not doing that much moped stuff other than ride.

I had Polini decals on the tank because they match the colors nicely, and to hide a small dent. ;)
I removed them with a razor blade, and this was the sticky mess that was left. To prep the tank for the new decals, one should clean with denatured alcohol. I didn't have any, so I used brake part cleaner, which works just as well on a powder coat finish. It evaporates completely and leaves no residue. It took the goo off the side, and I let it dry while I prepped the decals, by trimming them down to minimum sticky backing, and then lightly applying Windex to the sticky side. That way, you can adjust the decal if it doesn't lay perfect on the first try. I got them lined up, and when satisfied, ran over them with a squeegee. Then all I had to do was wait about an hour for the windex to completely dry, and then I was able to pull the backing off gently. No problems, although one P in Penny did come off on the backing, but I was able to place it directly on the tank without it looking bad.

The finished product.
I may or may not throw another set of Polini decals on under the inger1 part of the decals, but feel free to voice an opinion on if I should or not.

Mo-pack

Mopeds in the back of my truck

• Puch Magnum MKII - Big 50cc
  
• Puch Maxi - 65cc Metra
• Puch Maxi - Weird 50cc Puch cylinder
• JC Penny Swinger1 - 64cc Polini
• Vespa Bravo - 13:13 - To be sold
  
• Vespa Bravo - To be sold

Parts in my truck

• Puch Snowflakes
• Racks, bars, rails and pedals
• 3 e50 cases
• 1 and 3/4 e50 internals
• 5 or so puch cylinders and some pistons
• A few small carbs
• Ninja G3 for motobecane
• Ported AV7 with Vairoplus and 15:15

I spent half the day packing my truck and cleaning my garage out. I am leaving about 2/3 of my tools in storage. Some day I'll have a garage again. For now, let us drive this giant rig across the country for the love of mopeds.

Pacific Time

So I've been in Seattle all weekend, and I've seen mopeds riding around and I am just wishing I had my bikes to be ripping around on at the time. I missed Blood Drive :( I didn't get a chance to head out to the mars bar tonight. Worst of all, I still don't have a place to live! So I'm leaving my wife in town while I go back to Nebraska to pack all my mopeds up and hopefully we will have a place to live by then so I can head back out. At any rate, let me know if you guys seen anything in the Ballard area that I should check out. I'm be ripping it up in the Emerald City before too long!


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Update
A place has been leased. Living on Nickerson a block or two from the Ballard bridge. I'll be at the Mars Bar monday on my own ped! Hooray!

Mama Mio!

On my to-do list this summer was mount my GPS onto my maxi. Nate Bandit had a similar GPS unit to this one mounted on his hobbit, and I quickly fell in love with the idea and bought my own. I'm not innovative, what can I say. All sorts of ideas went into my head of how to mount it and were, and none of the ideas were any good, because I wanted to retain the factory dash mount because it is nice for the wife and myself to take in car trips. So that meant no grinding or cutting the original plastic parts. Then today as I realized it was my last day to do something about it other than dream, the idea came to me at lunch and I came home and knocked this thing out in literally 5 minutes. The original GPS mount with suction cup has two points of articulation, one side to side, and one up and down, both adjustable by thumb screw. I removed the thumb screw from the horizontal joint, and when you rotate it all the way to the side, makes a very nice straight up and down hole were the thumb screw had been. So I drilled and tapped the handle bar clamp and ran a screw right into the clamp. The GPS can clip into and out of the bracket easily, and the bracket can remain on the bike when not in use, but can come out with one screw if we need to use the GPS with the windshield mount in the car. It runs off internal lithium batteries, and lasts about 4 hours of solid use with the backlight. With the light off it last much longer, and charges from USB. I can do bike routes, non-highway routes, points of interest like gas stations and food, it gives me distance, ETA and speed as well. I love this thing, it is useful, but more importantly, a cool gadget.

Make Trails

I'm once again packing my garage. A box of cylinders, a box of engine cases, a whole box full of nuts, bolts and washers, plus all my tools. I have moped tools, car tools, saws, grinders, plumbing stuff and who knows what. I don't think I have room to bring everything to Seattle, and I've been thinking about what I'm going to do, since it's more than likely I won't have a garage. I had been thinking of buying an old full size van once I arrived in Seattle to keep tools and peds in, but then I ended up with a better solution. I have an enclosed trailer now, and I'm pretty stoked. Got it used, and in decent condition. It has a workbench in it and 12vDC lights, I think I will wire it for 120v AC as well so I can run my power tools in it. There will be room for my toolchest, welder (yay!), vice, bench grinder and air compressor, in addition to secure moped storage for the bikes I'm not riding at the moment. It is pretty good size, but I think it will fit in a full sized car parking space, and could be moved by hand with two guys. So now I have quite a few more options when it comes to looking for a place to rent. Basically any off-street parking or decent flat parking space ought to hold my trailer and provide me with a rent free place to work. So I'll be towing this bad boy with me through the mountains when I make the move next week, and then after I empty all my household junk out of it, turning it into a mobile moped workspace.

I also finished mounting the fenders on the Swinger1 today, they look pretty good. The seat I think could stand to come down a little lower, now that I look at it with fenders on. I will try to mail them off to Motion Left Mopeds to get powder coated on Monday and get them put on before I start riding that bike around Ballard. I'm excited to ride in packs again, I miss having a swarm of mopeds to take over the street with. What a great feeling!

Aw nuts!

I picked up some 10mm x1.0 nuts on the cheap at the local Carquest, and they fit the motobecane axles nicely on my Puch. So I made some spacers and put a nut on the inside and outside of the swing arm, hopefully avoiding the whole wheel falling off thing. I only had one tensioner, so I made another out of an old cylinder stud and a washer. It's kind of ugly, but works pretty well. I think I'll just use it as is, it gives character to the bike. That's Bandit style right there.

As I was riding home on the wheel less trip, I naturally heard a lot of metal on metal noise, and it didn't all go away. I assumed it was coming from my clutch, so I took it all open and inspected it, nothing wonky there. I found that my flywheel was banging the case and wasn't snug up enough. I put the impact wrench on it and torqued it down and no problems. Runs really solid right now. I've got the 19mm PHBG on it and I'm running a "mystery" size jet. It was what was in the carb when I got it second hand, it has no markings on it at all, and looks to be somewhere between 75-85 based on the size of the hole. It runs real good, and this is the fastest Metra65 I've ever built (not that it means a whole lot!) so I'm going to continue to put miles on it, hoping for no more problems!

I also helped my friend Jay bore out his 10mm Minarelli intake to 12mm to match his 14:12, and we also acid cleaned his tank while we were doing the intake. His Motron is pulling about 35mmph (moped miles per hour) which means maybe 28-29, but he is ordering a 15:15 and I've got a Bullet pipe to put on there, so we are hoping for a real 35mph. That will be next weekend. Then the weekend after that, Seattle!

I guess it stops!

Here are some pictures I would like to pretend people would be impressed by! Another plain maxi! I got my Dellorto19 put on the 65 Metra with one of those right angle intakes that Treats sells because I wanted to run side covers and didn't feel like having a huge intake sticking out. I replaced the crank with a Rito job and new guts from another bottom end I had, and it seems to be great. The rear clearance problems are gone (for now) and the tire misses the swing arm by nearly 1 cm on each side! The chain is tensioned, I replaced the front brake pads with new ones, and so I can even slow down! The old shoes were so worn out the cable was extended as far as it goes top and bottom, with no brake pull. I had to go the other way completely with the new shoes, so I have more than all my adjustment, because I had to drop the top adjusting nut so I could get the cable stop into the brake arm. It seems to be a little rich in the low end but just about right up top, so I'm happy with that.

Still left to do

• Lower the seat
• Rear set pegs
• Remove switches? I like a clean look, but I want a brake light too, so I have to leave those wires
• Ride at least another tank of gas to see if it wants to give me any trouble.
  
• Bend my left crank arm out a bit more

Alright, this one is almost put to bed. I need to do a bit more work on my Swinger1 to get it Seattle ready.

I am also going to be in town the weekend of Blood Drive house hunting, so no rallying for me, sadly, but I will at least show up at the shop on Friday night and say Hello, and if someone can find a loaner for me, I'd love to ride along on Moped Monday.

UPDATE
I took the bike for a ride and the axle nuts fell off both sides of the back wheel. I guess they weren't quite snug, huh? I can't believe it didn't come apart and kill me! Now I need a new motobecane axle nut. I hope it isn't a super rare thread like Puch wheels.