got the stupid $15 piece i needed to put ciao back on the road! that dumb pulley back!
still need to address the collapsed rear spring.. only one of the coils still functions. i ran it last race like this and it did ok, i just had to lighten up the weights a lot.
there being only one coil of the spring actually functioning, the rear pulley likes to bounce. it’s hard to explain in text, but the same thing will happen with a french bike if you have the spring too soft.. the weights will cause it to variate quick, then the spring will push back and you’ll have your motor bouncing on the spring. on a french bike the belt can come off when that happens, on a dual variated bike it’s mostly just annoying. still usable, though!
man, it’s weird to be back on the ciao. i’m not used to it anymore at all!
i swapped out the drag bars for some bmx lookin things that rafter gave me. i had to weld about a half inch to the ends to make them wide enough for my grips, but that wasn’t a big deal. not sure how i like them. more comfy, for sure, but dunno if i dig the look.
those forks have always bothered me, too. they are too long. digging through the pile of trashed forks, i found an old set of ebrs that clamp the fork tubes up top and bottom, like the more expensive ebrs do. the forks are trashed, but the top plate appears to be good! except the chrome is rotten as hell, but whatever, i’ll just sandblast it.
i’m sure it’ll look stupid with the fork tubes sticking out the top, but whatever, i’ll work it out in the end.
anyway, more later! i’m going to build a battery box/license plate holder/tail light thingy here pretty soon! it’s gunna be neat!
hello everyone, did you miss me? no? oh.
anyway! ciao is sitting at the shop and i’ve started converting it back to street use. that pretty much just means i’m putting lights on it.
i’m using magnomos’ old headlight because that’s what i happen to have laying around. besides, the terry dean edition mf headlight sticker suits ciaociao.
if you’ll remember, i’ve got some dinky little cdi system from a kids dirt bike powering the bike, so no lights. once i get my battery back from alan, i’m going to build a little battery box and mount it back by the rear wheel.. i’ll take pictures that better explain it as i’m doing it.
not sure what i’m going to use as a tail light just yet.
also, here’s a better picture of the damage done last time ciaociao ran..
i’ll never use malossi variator bits again! well, except weights and rear springs i suppose..
anyway, that’s all i’ve got for the moment. now that ciaociao’s going to be my daily rider, i’ll be changing a lot about it, so there should be more fun times ahead. new pipes, new bars, maybe new paint.. watch and see!
so remember how i said i was working on stuffing a 24mm mikuni carb into my ciao frame? well i pretty much gave up on that idea.
thanks to tony s., i was able to bust out a super nice intake plate to get the carb bolted up to the motor without much trouble.
problem is, there is no room for the carb in the frame!
i would have to loose the pedals all together and chop a huge chunk out of my frame to make it fit in there, and i’m not about to do either of those things.
there might still be a 24mm carb in the future for ciaociao, but it will be a smaller carb that will fit in the bike easier. no need to cut up the frame for a mikuni when there’s other, smaller carbs that will get the job done just as well!
polini cup 5 post coming soon! with pictures!
i was able to grab a couple photos with rafter’s camera the other day, so i can show you some of the stuff i’ve done.
first, tony was nice enough to take my variator to his lathe and rid me of that big ring that’s part of the polini pulley cheek.
it’s actually part of the cheek (the part of the pulley the belt rides on) but it’s too high up to be used, at least by my current setup, so it was nothing but added weight to me. i also had him mill .5mm off the back of the cheek so that the variator would close up further, giving me more top end! that was the idea anyway. not sure how well it worked, i did so many things all at once that it’s hard to say what’s doing what!
pro work done a pro dude, thanks tony.
and here’s a blurry picture i took of the brake stop peg i had to weld in to work with this wheel and brake plate;
rafter has a fancy super camera and i don’t really know how to use it. i miss my crappy point-and-click deal with the built in flash.
i finally got around to making a fork brace for the bike, too. i was going to put it way down close to the tire, super tight tolerance like, but i decided to leave some room in case i go to 17″ wheels later on.
not the prettiest brace on the block, but it gets the job done quite well.
also, i’ll be going up to a 24mm mikuni from my 21mm dellorto, hopefully before next race!
it’s going to be tricky getting it in there, but i think i’ve got it covered. thankfully nate of motomatic mopeds and tony are both super skilled at welding aluminum! i’m running out of time, though, and both are busy with their own stuff, so we’ll see if it happens before october 3rd!
inside the cylinder pictures will probably have to wait until after the next race. no time to pull it apart!
anyway, there you go!
some pics of what’s been going on! i installed the ebr forks on ciaociao and they are much stiffer than the bouncy ball bravo forks i’m replacing. those bravo forks were great when the seals were good, but they blew out and now they are horrible. these new ebrs should be rad for now.
all torn apart and in rafter’s way, making him grumpy.
when i converted my front wheel to sealed bearings i went to a much larger axle than stock, so i had to dremel out the dropouts on the forks to fit.
when i had the fork off i noticed my bottom bearing cup was way loose in the frame. i was worried the frame was ovalized, but it turns out the cup was bad. nate found me a replacement and now everything’s better.
now that the forks are on, i’m presented with a few new problems. the brake plate i modified to work with the ciao/bravo forks won’t work with these forks, so i’m going to have to get clever there again. also, these ciao ebrs don’t come with any way to attach the bars to them. ebr assumes you’ll be using your stock parts with their forks, and as you may or may not know, stock ciaos have quill stem style bars. i have a couple pair of clip-ons, i’m thinking about throwing a pair on to try them out and see if i hate them, but i think i will.. so i’ll probably end up drilling four holes in the top tripple tree plate and using the bravo fork’s u-bolts and riser thingys like i was running on the old forks. we’ll see.
i’ve also did some variator mods, but i’ll save that for next time. i need to go get some work done. later taters.
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!
i was afraid i would have the frame here and a bunch of stuff done before my camera ever got here and i would have to do a post to catch everyone up, but my frame is still sitting at 1977sf and my camera showed up a couple days ago! the frame should be shipped out tomorrow or early next week, though!
but yeah, i was able to pick up the same camera as my old one, a little beat up but still working perfectly, for $50 on ebay. so yeah, once the frame shows up, i’m ready to go! yay!
Filed under: brakes, carb, cdi, dellorto, electronics, fail!, intake, new parts!, port timing
since my last update i’ve gotten a few things taken care of. firstly, i took care of the rear brake.
i have never had a moped with crappy brakes, especially the rear. i know the front does most of the stopping, but all of my bikes have always had awesome rear brakes, like skid worthy. i was a little disappointed in ciaociao’s rear brake hardly slowing me down even.
i pulled the rear end apart to sand the pad and see if there was anything i could do to make it work better, when i remembered i had a kinetic rear hub floating around. i dug it out and discovered the brake pad on it was over twice as wide as the stock ciao pad!
here you can see the stock pad compared to the kinetic pad, which i had already mounted in this picture;
the kinetic one is probably a third bigger than my “large” vespa pad from my si that got saturated in gear oil. totally found another good thing about kinetics! can you believe it?
after mounting it, i got it all sanded and ready to use, and threw a new pedal sprocket on with fewer teeth for good measure.
it works awesome now! skid city!
i also fixed my flywheel fan for the last time, i hope!
i made a new spacer on the lathe, only this time i gave it a cheek for the fan to rest on. i pretty much re-created the same spacer from last time, but left it a super thin shelf for the back of the fan.
then i chucked the fan itself up in the lathe and turned out a step for the spacer’s shelf to fit into.
here they are side by side;
and put together;
poured on the 4000lb test glue and it works perfectly! no more fan falling into my expensive coils!
speaking of expensive coils, after installing the new set and putting the bike back together, i wasn’t getting any spark at all. took the bike all the way apart again to discover my coils were faulty. either they came that way, or i some how broke them while installing them.. at any rate, i thought i was up a creek.
after calling around to literally 20+ ktm dealers in my area, i finally found on that had one in stock! it ended up costing me a good deal more than the other coils, but the ones i got are true made-in-italy ktm50 coils, not after market knock-offs like the last two sets i had and broke. the actual ktm coils are way better quality and totally worth the extra money.
i put the new new coils in last night, cut and bent up a lever choke for my phbg so it would fit, and it fired right up. it was about 11p and i got yelled at by the neighbor, so i put it away for the night. i started in on tuning today and discovered i have an air leak at the intake plate i made, but i have a few ideas to fix that pretty easy. for the meanwhile, i’m going to be slapping on the black rtv and get to tuning!
she’s almost ready to rip!!
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.
ok, i’ve been all over the place about my carb issues. this evening i committed to running the 21 phbg like originally planned. why? because it was the quick and easy, i have jets for it, and i love milling the fuck out of things, even if it’s a $150 chunk of aluminum carb body.
oooh, what?
what’s going on here?
nooooo!
yeah, i milled the spigot off the back of the carb! as well as a few hairs of material to make it flat and fit as close to the intake plate as possible. i’m tight for room!
you might also notice i milled the spot for the idle screw flat and installed a block off, and move the idle screw to the other side of the carb. i was going to do the same for the air mixture screw, but that’s more involved.. and i think i can get away with drilling a small hole in the fan shroud and be able to access that on the bike.
i could have just ordered up a right handed phbg, but i don’t have time for that shit.
here you can see where i milled the plate to hold the reed block;
all that’s left for the intake is to drill a couple holes in the carb it self, tap them, and drill a couple countersunk holes in the intake plate. make a gasket and bolt them together! done!
here you can see how nicely the intake plate matches up with the carb;
once i have it bolted solid to the plate, i’ll match them together even better and call it good.
i wish i had gotten pictures of milling on the carb, but i didn’t have my camera handy. oh well, i’m sure you can imagine how fun it was!
tomorrow i’m going to make the gasket, mark where the holes go on both the carb and intake plate and return it all to mikemike to let him finish it off. i think i may have to cut a little chunk out of the frame down at the bottom of the fender (not the actual fender it self, but the support below it) to clear the float bowl, but i’ll have to wait and see once i start putting it together.
ok, that’s enough for one night. it’s time for bed.
