Filed under: wheels
so i’ve got lots in store for ciao, and i’m starting to collect parts. i’m going to be going back to 17″ spokes for now (anyone have a rear wheel in good shape?), and i will be selling the si X wheels with the sava tires mounted. anyone interested? i’ll be posting them up on moped army too, but site is down this weekend for the long awaited update, and i don’t think i’ll be ready to let them go by next week.
i’ll post them on here first and wait like a week or so before going to the buy/sell forum over there.
i don’t know how much i want for them, probably similar to what they go for on treatland.tv, and it’s still going to be a little while before i can give them up, but now’s your chance to call dibs if you want them!
front has been converted to 12mm axle and sealed bearings.
brake plate is stock si modified to work with stock ciao fork, also worked perfectly with the bravo fork. if you have the chrome ebrs like i do now, you’ll have to modify something to make it work. i welded some metal to my fork to make it stick further out and it works great.
the front brake pads are newish, probably around 80% life left. i can check that when i pull them off.
front tire is sava 16×2.25, rear is 16×2.5. rear has around 50% life left, front more like 80%.
i’ll grab pictures when i remove them.
yay!
ok, so here are the pictures of my sealed bearing conversion for the front wheel all ready to go. i thought i got some photos of the bearing cups and knocking them out, and making the spacer for between the sealed bearings, but i can’t find them.. 
lame. oh well, if enough people want to see it, i’ll find another wheel to convert and make a walk through for it.
here are pics of it ready to go on the bike!
you can see the spacer in the last pic, showing the bearing inside the brake hub. it’s just a piece of chromoly tubing cut just long enough to support the lateral load of being bolted into the fork. if you do this conversion, make sure you use good steel tubing of a high grade, cut the ends SQUARE, and make sure they only touch the inner race of the bearing.
i’ve also started on the new swing arms for the front fork. originally i was going to make a bracket that bolted to the axle to hold my shock dampeners, but then i realized i needed to mill out the axle slots to fit the larger axle that goes along with the sealed bearing conversion, and that there is no good way to build those brackets to begin with, so i decided custom swing arms were the way to go.
first, i took a block of aluminum billet and cut out two chunks large enough to whittle down to size.
once i had those, i had to take them to the mill and mill them down to the proper width. then i started to shape the inside bottom corner of the arms so that they could pivot in the fork like the originals.
corners shaped, it was time to mill the hole for the bolt that they will pivot on. i made them the same diameter as the holes in the original arms so that i could use the bushings and spacer from them.
the bushings press in nice and tight, and everything fits the fork.
next is to drill the hole for the axle (it will be in the same place as the original, just larger for the bigger axle) and to mill in the slots for the dampeners. once i have that done, i can figure out where i want to drill the holes for the bottom of the dampener and mill off excess aluminum from the arms to reduce weight.
then it’s just a matter of building the upper brackets and picking up some pins to hook everything together! i’m hoping for three different shock mounts at the bottom, maybe two up top. or, to keep it simple, i might just go with one up top and two down below. that would give me a “hard” and “soft” setting.
if i were real fancy, i could do the math, figure out the angles and everything, and know exactly how stiff the front end will be in each mode. but i’m not fancy, i’m just going to wing it. if it’s too stiff, i’ll pick up some 60lb dampeners from the same people i got the 80lb ones from and try again.
so yeah, that’s where i stand. i still don’t know for sure which carb i’m going to use (i have three to choose from), and don’t have the electronic system all ready to go.. and rally time is like a month away! jeez.
i love the ciao chapter of jerry murray’s mo-ped, the wonder vehicle. i think i might actually type it out and put it up on here as an article. do you think i’d get in trouble?
on an unrelated (yet still ciao related) note, i pulled the axle out of my front wheel yesterday, along with the bearing cups. the si front wheel holds 32mm bearing cups, which is a pretty standard od sealed bearing size. however, vespas use an 11mm axle in the front wheel, which would make finding bearings difficult as the most common sizes are 32x10mm and 32x12mm.
to make finding sealed bearings easier, i’m going to throw out the 11mm axle in favor of a 12mm gremeca axle. i will have to machine the swing arms on my fork, but less than .5 of a mm on either side of the axle shouldn’t be a problem at all.
also, i found a source for the struts! msc industrial supply co. appears to have exactly what i’m looking for, and pretty cheap too! they have different ratings in the size i want, as well as different end connection options. i think i’m going to try to get at least 60lb rated struts, giving at least 120lbs (not counting the stock spring rate) for the front end of the moped. they also have 80lb rated struts, but i haven’t check to see if they have my size yet.
oh, and i dremmeled the inside of my rear hub the other day to allow for more oil access to the gears. i started assembling the rear end and then realized i left the main axle back in my bed room.. i gotta get over there to get the rest of my ciao stuff soon.
ok, fed ex is here, that’s all! later taters.
i lied! the front wheel isn’t quite done. i am going to pop out the steel cups for the bearings and fit some nice sealed units in there. then the front wheel will be ready to roll.
i’m having a harder time sourcing out the dampeners for the front wheel than i thought i would.. turns out most washing machines use plastic struts rather than metal ones to dampen a uneven load. oh well, something will turn up.
so, as promised, i spent some time in mikemike’s shop milling up the brake plate to work with the stock ciao fork. after milling the squeezed out quicksteel, i had a nice flat surface to work with.
i marked the centerline for the new brake stop slot, chocked the plate up in the mill, and went to town.
the finished product came out nicely, and fit in the fork perfectly!
so the front wheel is ready to go for now. i still need to source out some dampeners for the front fork and build brackets for those, but that should be pretty straight forward.
while i was milling the brake plate, mikemike had the flywheel on the lathe, cutting the taper for my crankshaft. it was a pretty simple operation, and everything is fitting up nicely.
you’ll notice there’s no stator plate for the coils yet, mikemike’s waiting on a new blade for the ban saw, so that’s something for later.
there’s a ciao frame with a rusted through tank sitting at the shop, so once we were done turning and milling, we stuck my motor in that frame to start brainstorming on the intake. we’ve got a couple ideas, and will probably make a couple intakes to see what will work best. i’m hoping to get back in there this weekend if mike has the time, or at least taking a trip down to the metal store next monday.
there are still a few things i need to source out (i found another set of bars, but i’m not really that happy with them), but i am excited that its coming together!
well, as some of you know, i quit my job last friday, and will be working at seattle mopeds come april 1st.
this has me super excited! no more 9 hours of sitting in front of a computer in a dark office with depressed coworkers all day! even if i end up doing a fair amount of sitting in front of the computer at the shop doing the ebay thing and keeping the seattle mopeds facebook and myspace updated and stuff like that, at least it won’t be tedious boring work, and it won’t be in such a depressing environment.
anyway, i was just about to order the carb when i noticed my bank is down to the >300 mark, so now i’m torn between holding out till i get another paycheck in the bank, or just saying screw it and ordering the thing. i reaaaallly want to get that thing in my hands asap.
i think i’m going to mikemike’s later today to machine the brake plate for the front wheel to get it to fit proper. this will be a big step too, as it’ll allow me to get the wheels bolted up and have a rolling chassis laying around rather than a pile of parts.
ok, i’m going to go put some things on craigslist and see if i can’t generate some bucks. anyone interested in a seriously like-new roland alpha juno 2 in hard shell case? $200 + shipping!
yay, the si is in my garage! and already stripped down! haha. it’s pretty rough, but nicer than i thought it would be.. i think i might rebuild it later on with my spoked wheels and some mild performance improvements, put a basket on the front and make it my grocery getter. but that’s another story for another blog. i wish i had remembered to take better pictures of it before i started tearing it apart. oh well!
what i’m most excited about right now, though, are these;
like i said before, not the wheels i was hoping for, but now that these are actually in my possession i like them a whole lot more! haha.
i believe the si transmission has the 110mm rear pully, too, which is awesome. more torque! i’m going to clean it up and bring it up here for gear installation sometime this week.
also, benji says my pipe should be in this week, so if it shows up i should be able to have it in my happy hands pretty quick! so stoked.
i think i have myself a parts bike, an old beat up si!
i say “i think” i have myself a si, because i haven’t paid for it yet, nor do i have it in my possession yet. bradly is supposed to go pick it up for me tomorrow afternoon.
i am super stoked about getting it, though! it has the 4 spoke rims, which aren’t the ones i wanted at all, but will do until i have the money to send off for the 3 spoke ones. plus i wanted a set of these wheels for orange ciao, so once i get the other mags from .nl, i’ll be set in the wheel department.
it also has the motor and transmission intact, as well as the variator and various other useful parts. def worth the price!
sorry about the crappy picture, i grabbed it from the craigslist posting. i’ll have better pictures and descriptions tomorrow night when it’s sitting in my garage!
Filed under: carb, dellorto, kit, malossi, motor, new parts!, performance, pinasco, pipe, simonini, wheels
i am tempted to put up the list of parts i have bought for ciao, and the remaining parts i need to buy (pipe, carb), but i would really like to wait until i have my hands on them before i start talking about what “i have”, you know?
such as those wheels i posted before. fred found them for me, but i ended up spending the money on engine parts and so will have to wait on the wheels. i feel bad because i already said i am getting those wheels, and i still will, but it will be further down the road than i originally though it would.
but at the same time, it’s really hard not to show you guys what i spent my money on! haha. after all, they are on their way already, so why not, right?
ok, here’s what i have on the way;
malossi crank case, cdi version. 4 pedal reed valve! sweet action!
malossi crank 10mm pen. stuffed and needle bearings all over the place!
pinasco 46mm (80cc) cylinder.
i was torn between the pinasco 46mm and the malossi 46,5mm (80cc), but all of the .nl kids i have been talking to recommended the pinasco. it’s aluminum, which will aid with the cooling as this will be a high rpm bike (the malossi is cast iron), and i’m told it out performs the malossi as is. the malossi has more potential apparently, but as this is my first kit ever (i’ve always been a make-my-50cc-haul-ass kind of guy) i decided to go with the kit that would require less work to reach it’s potential.
i will have to match the case to the kit, and add some boost port passages to the case, but that’s no big deal at all.
as for the pipe, i have decided on the simonini calibrata.
there are a few of these pipes floating around the u.s., but not many. i decided to build a ciao in the first place because it was the first moped i really wanted (though it took me forever to finally get one), and because i wanted to do something different. i was a little turned off on the calibrata at first because of the fact that they are out there already, but that’s a silly reason to not want the best high rpm pipe available (well, according to my sources).
besides, the point of this blog in the first place is to try and inspire others to perhaps build a sweet vespa, and it would be retarded of me to not want more tuners to have the good parts, just because i want my bike to be one off! haha.
as for the carb, i am still undecided. i would love to use a “racing edition” dellorto phbg (either 19mm or 21mm, still working that out) for the ease of tuning the carb over the standard phpg’s, but they don’t come in the “clamp on” style, which is what i think i’ll need with my limited space. i’m waiting until my parts show up so that i can figure out what i have to work with as far as that goes.
so anyway, that’s where i’m at. as i said, the crank case, crank and cylinder are on their way, so they are as good as mine. the pipe i will be ordering once benji gets one in for me.
as for the electronics, i have some stuff in the works. i have to wait until the case shows up so that i can see what will work, so i’ll save that for another day. 12v cdi is almost a certain, though, that much i can say.
