ciaociao is already down in sacramento waiting for me, i left it there after the reno rally.
by the way, my “reliable” bike seized a main bearing at the reno rally, so i did the rest of it on ciao and ciao had no issues whatsoever! it has became my most reliable moped!
the belts i ordered from malossi direct showed up, plus the one from treats i’ve been carrying around with me, i should be good on belts for a little while. those malossi belts are awesome, but the shred apart after a while. the one i’m currently running is starting to fray a little, so i think i’ll be replacing it soon.
i also need to pull the carb off the intake plate and put some loctite on the threads of the mounting bolts, the carb likes to start to wiggle loose after a while. it doesn’t even seem to notice the air leaks, but it’s something that needs to be addressed.
anyway, more to come when i’m in sacramento! goodbye for now, seattle!
installing malossi clutch springs on a vespa is a total bitch. i am hating life right now.
once i get them in, though, all i have to do is tighten everything down and install the decompress cable and i’m ready to try and start it! omg!
also, fuck a vespa clutch. 
more (with pictures) later.
i’m back from portland (so much fun!) and just won a nos grande transmission case for 99¢ on ebay.
a grande case isn’t as nice as a si case, the si case has a larger oil reservoir and a much larger brake pad, but si parts are really hard to come by.
i can swap brake pads no problem, but it sucks i won’t be able to pump as much oil into my tranny to keep things cool and slippery.
oh well, as long as i get it together proper (with a thick gasket this time) i shouldn’t have any problems.
besides, you can’t beat nos parts for 99¢! well, $6.99 after shipping, but still really cheap.
i took down the malossi gear installation page for the time being so that i can redo it with better pictures and better info. that should be back up in a few days.
tonight, mf and myself are jumping in big mo and heading to portland for the puddle cutters’ two year anniversary ride. i’ll be on orangeciao with a nice, stock rear end back in it.
i ran that transmission into the ground!
i am kind of mad at myself for letting it go that far, but at least i can say i broke it good?
new tranny is installed, stock gearing though. malossi gears are on the way.
Filed under: carb, dellorto, electronics, frame, intake, malossi, paint, performance, transmission
sorry to you guys that follow this. i have been lame about updating. it’s been busy around here! i feel like i need to update more mostly because other than jon’s blog, this is pretty much the only moped build blog that ever gets any updates. at least as far as i know.
well, i have paid for another set of the malossi gears, and they should be on their way soon. i’m going to be buying up a third set as soon as i can too. one set for orange ciao, another set for ciaociao. i was so impressed by the performance gain the gears gave me in la on orange ciao, that i really hate to go back to stock on that bike. that’s why i’m still running around on the broken malossi gears!
speaking of broken malossi gears, i think i should update my installation guide to inform everyone of what i think went wrong, and what i think i need to do to avoid it a second time. i’ll do that soon.
as far as the rest of ciaociao goes, i haven’t made much progress. i need to get on mikemike more about getting with me to machine the remaining electronic parts, and also to weld up the seams on the frame, and get that cross bar in there.
jeb said he has a dellorto si kicking aorund that i can check out to see if it will work for me. the carb for me is either a 20mm si, or a 21 phbg. once i figure out what i’m doing there, then i need to make an intake. that shouldn’t be hard/take long. i hope.
anyway, my goal is to have this bike done (sans powder coating) for the puddle cutter rally in june. i will be riding it in it’s rough and raw stage for that rally. i think i’ll be back in reno (at least for a bit) some time between that rally and creature rally, which means i’ll be able to strip ciaociao down and drive it to sac to have it coated by nate and rafter. save on shipping, and i’ll be able to test ride and tune the crap out of the bike before pumping more money into it for powder coating.
anyway, that’s my update for tonight. there’s more that i could go into, but i’ll save it for another post.
so, before leaving, i put the malossi geared transmission, my malossi variator and the malossi belt in orange ciao to get a feel for everything. with the stock bottom end, a polini kit, 13/13 carb and proma circuit, that thing was hauling some balls! that is, until a washer in the transmission split in two and half of said washer sucked up into the gears and tore out a few teeth.
yeah, i blew up my malossi gears. honestly, i don’t know why that washer broke. it wasn’t the one that i was told some kids leave out, but i think when i rebuild the tranny with a new set i’m going to leave out that washer for sure. also, i’m wondering if my gasket maker seal was too thin? the original paper gasket is pretty thin too, but perhaps with the torquing of the bolts, it caused too much pressure on the washers? i’m going to either make or buy a new paper gasket next time around. maybe i’ll make a thicker one, just to be safe.
at any rate, that was an expensive fuck up. that bike was ripping until i killed it, though!
i’m ordering two more sets of those gears, another variator and belt, and some clutch springs some time soon. i want orange ciao to have the higher ratio gears, and i want a set for ciaociao. they are a HUGE improvement over the stock! well, as long as they don’t blow up on you.
anyway, stock gears for orange ciao for now. i’ll take some pictures of the damage when i tear that tranny apart again.
i was able to limp to choke while in la, where i tore it apart, cleaned out all the metal shards and rebuilt it with fresh oil and a new gasket maker seal. i ran it a few times since then, but it’s kind of scary.. it makes a ton of noise, and you can feel when it hits the spot where teeth are missing. there aren’t any two or more teeth in a row gone, so i’ve been limping around on it until i get around to putting stock back in it. soon, i hope! i don’t want it to lock up on me!
the pipe showed up today! other than a little easily fixed shipping damage, the thing was everything i expected! such a rad pipe.
the “carbon look” alum baffle is pretty weird, but awesome, and the whole thing is pretty damn light for such a big pipe. i’m quite surprised. this ciao is going to end up being pretty freakin light in the end.
i’ve been putting the most of my attention on orange ciao lately, old orange is the one that’s going to la for rally time. i installed ciaociao’s transmission on it, the long rides at the rally ought to break the gears in nicely, have them all ready to rip once ciaociao is good to go. i’m also going to use the malossi belt i have for ciaociao and get another one later on. maybe even the variator. i was planning on getting a variator and belt for orange ciao anyway, and i could probably benefit from using them at the rally, so we’ll see.
ok, it’s bed time now. i’m sick and i hurt. good night.
Filed under: cosmetic, crank, intake, kit, lighting, malossi, motor, new parts!, paint, pinasco
so after installing the bearings on the crank, i had mike mike take the big case half to his shop and press the crank in.
tonight i pressed the other half on, but i don’t think the crank is completely seated proper.. we’re going to take it to his shop again and make sure it’s pressed in completely. you can see the bit of gap that worries me here;
it should go the rest pretty easily.
i bolted the 13mm intake on (a custom 19mm one is in the works) to keep the reed block from getting messed up kicking around my room, and so that i wouldn’t loose the bolts or anything.
besides, it looks cool!
now i need to finish filing the ports out on the pinasco, polish up the exhaust shoot and bolt the rest together!
it’s coming together! once i have the motor all bolted together in one piece, i can stick it in the frame and figure out the clearance i’ll have for the custom intake. and mike mike can machine the parts for the sweet cdi, and i can order the carb and pipe, the motor will be ready to go!
also, i ordered the stem, bar ends and pedals the other day, and tonight i ordered the bars and the headlight.
the cdi will not have a lighting coil, so i’m going battery powered.
i was lucky to find a niterider minewt.x2 set up for way cheaper than i should have! this is rad, because it’s small, way brighter than your moped’s headlight, and i can transfer it over to my road bikes super quick style when i get unlazy and seattle gets uncrappy out!
ok, that’s it for this update! i have decided to go with paint rather than powder coating the frame and wheels. powder coating would have been tricky with the paint scheme, and it’s probably going to cost a lot less to paint, even if i go pro, but i might just do it in my garage.
it should look rad when it’s done.
sneak peek!
i was planning on a large update with lots of pics tonight, but i don’t have time to do it just yet. that’ll have to hold you over!
in other news, bought a .net for this blog. i plan to expand the domain and turn it into a place for all of my projects, but for now it belongs to ciaociao.
spacemanicecream.net! i know, right? you’ll see!
