the new - what have you done to your ped today thread.

took my brake calliper off at 6am, going to take it to work and measure the pistons so I know which size of the two sizes italjet spares sell I need, then ill be on the hunt for a new rear brake cable because my dipshit brother cut the old one off thinking it was fucked because it didn't reach the arm - fucking move the arm one notch because of new brake shoes fuckwit!
going to have a bit of a play with the scoot when I get back tonight and see what I can actually do to it with the amount of parts that are missing.

 

well thanks to stevep i now know what stuff i need for my brakes. piaggio nrg brake cable and whatever size pistons he said. took him 2 minutes to find out what its been taking my brothers place 2 months to find out and theyre a "proper workshop" bollocks. going to get them ordered, sort out a battery, blank off the front indicator holes in the plastic until i get new indicators for it. painters are refusing to do my panels, so fuck it, ill give it a go myself properly and not a wilko job. top box to be going on next week hopefully. aiming to have the scoot running and riding end of next week. going to get it run in and then its off to stevep for a new carb, exhaust, rollers messing with and jetting because i wont have the time. i know who ill be going to instead to get my scoot stuff done from now on - Yamaha is off to Yamaha for the 2nd time since ive had it - wont start from cold now, even though its the injection model, once started for the first time itll start and run fine all day. 2500 miles on the clock at 4000rpm. don't expect this shit from a brand new bike.

 

OK, today has seen me finish off the replacement wheels for my TKR2. To recap, this is what the original back wheel looks like and the front is no better.



Now for some scooter porn. Get a load of these replacement wheels.




These wheels were paint stripped, acid etched using Oxalic Acid to remove the oxidation (much more effective and harsher than Citric Acid, but these wheels needed it), then two coats each of U-Pol No.8 Acid Etch Primer, two coats of Graphite Grey paint and two coats of heavy duty Polyurethane lacquer. You can't even see where I repaired the tyre bead rim at all. Now I need some tyre valves and some new tyres to make these look the absolute dog's danglies. The paint finish is flawless and the photos don't do them justice.

Tomorrow, I'm fitting the new crank bearings, the final drive bearing and the seals before I sort out the gasket faces and start the re-assembly. The £10 Yasuni is also finished, but that's enough scooter porn for today for you, or you'll all go blind!

 

ive just had a go of my stepdads new toy on a very big disused and privately owned car park.
vstrom thou. FUCCCCKKKK MEEE. it has some grunt. once your used to the clutch though its sooooo nice. I didn't think I could handle it but bloody hell it was good. his friend had his triumph tiger 800 over there too, so considering that's my next bike.... I had a go. wasn't disappointed at all. I have one very big smile on my face right now. also italjet is 100% back on the road as my run about town as of next Wednesday. IM SO HAPPY

 

I made some more progress on the engine re-assembly today. I've installed the crank bearings and new seals, re-fitted the crank and assembled the crankcase, then assembled the variator, clutch and the belt. I assembled the stator and flywheel and after fitting the reed block and carb manifold I've called it a day.

Here's some more pron, starting with the £11 Yasuni (I paid £11.21 actually) that I mentioned.



It looks brilliant after a good scrub, some black HT paint and some new nuts and a new mounting bolt. Here's where I am up to with the engine. Warning! Gratuitous open crankcase shots!




Pretty smart, eh? I even painted the starter motor once I had got it working again. The engine's got Polini carbon fibre reeds in it and for now, I'm installing the stock 12mm Gurtner carb until it's done a few miles and bedded everything in. All gaskets have been given the Hylomar gasket sealant treatment, I've applied copper grease to the rear brake pivot and thread lock to the variator, flywheel and clutch nuts. It's got a Polini racing variator with 8.5g rollers and a Naraku Kevlar belt.

One crankcase locating dowel was being a pain in the arse as it was slightly damaged and out of round. I couldn't get it back to round enough to make it fit both sides properly, so I 'MacGyvered' my way out of the situation, by cutting some 15mm copper pipe lengthways with an angle grinder and a cutting disc. I cut a short section off, at the length of the dowel that was required, then I kept trimming more and more off the tube lengthways to reduce the diameter until I could form it with pliers around an 8mm bolt, to make a perfectly round 10mm diameter locating dowel with close fitting ends. After a bit of filing to taper the ends I was done. Success!!

I want to trickle some 2T oil into the bearings and the big end, before I assemble the cylinder and piston tomorrow. I've applied a tiny dab of grease to each of the crank seals to give them a head start and to stop them getting torn up at start-up. I've given the flywheel cover a spray with some black spray paint, to tidy it up before I install it tomorrow.

I've an idea as to how to chamfer the corner of the piston crown slightly, to improve the port timing without having to modify the cylinder. I'll give the idea a dry run before I tell you what my cunning plan is.

More tomorrow...

 

More pr0n for you. Here are some nasty, filthy, wide open-port shots of the exhaust porting work that I did to the cylinder.


It doesn't need to be super smooth, it just needs to promote better gas flow. For those of you that have read Jennings' and Bell's books on porting, I found a way to chamfer the edge of the piston crown, to slightly adjust the port timing without having to grind the cylinder and potentially ruin the Nikasil lining. The books say to use a file, but I found a much simpler way that is more controllable and I think gives better results.

I found a piece of angle iron that was larger that the piston crown diameter among my junk/MacGyvering pile of stuff. I folded a piece of wet and dry sandpaper into the fold of the angle iron, then I offered the piston up to the L shape of the angle iron at an angle of about 45 degrees and then rotated the piston against the sandpaper with constant pressure, ensuring that the whole of the piston's edge was sanded. I stopped when I had about half a mm of a 45 degree edge to the piston crown and then cleaned up the piston, fitted the rings, then installed the piston and barrel to the engine.


OCD Monkey wanted me to paint the cylinder with HT black paint, so that's what it got, even though it won't be seen under the ducting. I then mocked up the position of the bracket and Yasuni exhaust to the engine. I can't fit the exhaust until the back wheel is fitted, so I'm just leaving the bracket in place and then bolting the exhaust on via the silent blocks and exhaust studs when the engine is back on the bike.

Now I need to order a shim for the kickstart shaft, some wheel bearings and some tyre valves for the new wheels. After having drilled and re-tapped some of the threads in the transmission side of the case, I think I'm now short of a few screws, so that will get sorted out too.

I think that's quite enough scooter pr0n for you today.

 

I've found a 17mm Dell'Orto for my Peugeot for the princely sum of ten British pounds - get in! OK, so the electric choke and the carb top are missing (I don't know about the throttle slide and spring) but the 'wrong' Dell'Orto that I have can donate those parts to make a working unit.

I also ordered the kickstart shim, some chrome screws for the transmission cover and I scored this for £4.



I'm on the hunt for more retro badges now for my new bodywork.

 

Just bought another 3 scooters, gilera runner sp50, 2000 plate, yamaha neos 04 plate and an 02 plate gilera ice. All for the sum of £450.
The apprentice is looking at photos to "bling" the ice.
He's getting quite good at spending my money!

 

I took a bit of a break from the engine today as I am waiting for parts. Here's another badge I bought for £4.

It's from a 1960s Austin actually, although it won't look out of place on the bike and I have a mind's eye picture of what it might look like in place of the original TKR logo on the new bodywork.

 

got a lovely call from my brother today, "ive crashed my bike, its bad, can you come get me"

so I went and got him to be greeted with his Chinese scooter quite literally in two halves. luckily hes ok.
so for his commuter ive had to let him have the italjet again. its the only thing he can get insured on right now.
so sorting the carb out. turns out it has a 17.5m dellorto carb on it. lovely. one less thing to get. BUT, its got a hole in the bowl and the spring from under the elbow for the throttle cable is missing FFS. starter relay gone. piaggio nrg brake cable ordered and going on tomorrow, then hopefully we can start it and get it riding for him. oh and the starter relay has gone

 

If the hole in the bowl is in the usual place, where the drain outlet is, just warm it up and push it over to seal it. If it's the gasket that's gone I have some. Might even have a bowl somewhere depending on the carb. there were two you see. One carb has a long brass tube sticking down and goes into a hole in the bowl and the other doesn't. And if it's the spring that sits in the slide, i have those as well.

 

cheers steve, ill let you know whats going on tomorrow. I called his boss on his personal number about 30 mins ago and had a good fucking rant at him, basically what happened was, while it was mine and being worked on there, they took the original carb off and put it onto another customers bike, they then purchased this one from ebay and just threw it on without cleaning it or checking it. putting that onto a freshly rebuilt engine to me is a big NO. so my brother is apparently getting another carb from them tomorrow to use for spares for our 17.5mm dellorto phva carb - ill get pics. I want a manual choke on it because the auto chokes just cant be relied on. if anything, well get it running hopefully so hell atleast get a bike to ride for the weekdays next week and ill send him down next weekend maybe? if your not busy for you to make me a list. im working AND moving house this weekend + working next weekend too. if you can make me a quick list of what you think it needs and then make me a list of prices + send it me on here ill get it all sorted at some point. ive told him he has to run it in for 300 miles but with him asking me how fast itll go, I know what will happen.

 

They did WHAT with your carb!!!
They can't do shit like that. For testing purposes yes, but the customer buys a new or replacement carb and the other goes back on the bike it came off. Cowboys!
I have manual chokes for the dellorto carbs here as well. Pull up knobs, not levers, but it all depends on how easy it is to get to with the filter box in the way. I also have manual choke levers that fit to the handlebars like on bigger bikes, i did the conversion on the zip because it was hard to get to when the filter box was back on.

 

like I said, ive had a big rant. theyre a "proper shop" too. im picking him up from work tomorrow in the car because obviously he has no bike and im only working a half day tomorrow + on call out from 6pm-3am in the tow truck. but when I go pick him up, ill be having a few choice words with the actual owner of the place + my brothers boss who runs the workshop and demanding quite a bit of my money back. they've also lost my front left indicator lense. they didn't bother sorting the brakes like they were meant to.

its partly my brothers fault for saying oh that's fine just drop it off well sort rest but I paid for the engine to be rebuilt, new battery, some wiring to be redone, I paid for them to sort a issue with the front wheel and I paid for a issue with the rear light to be sorted. the only thing they've done is rebuild the engine, put a battery on and sorted the rear light. so im fuming. going to be demanding ALOT of money back. In hindsight I should of just got you to do it but obviously, knowing them through my brother I thought itd all be ok. I went mad at my brother too. pissed off is not the word. testing the other bike, yeah fine. but not replacing the fucked carb with MY carb which worked absolutely fine in the first place and had a pull up lever choke which I liked.
oh and they've put two big holes in the seat bucket, used hover pipe to put the air filter under the seat. yes I asked for it to go under the seat but not how it has been done.

if I get time and its running, ill ride it down to you next weekend, if not ill send my brother with it so you can look at it + give me a quote atleast + so you can see what im talking about here. im going mad.

 

@ Scootz

I have a Dellorto PHVA (I think it's an electric choke one) in bloody good nick here, although I may need to nick the carb top and screw, the throttle slide, needle and spring to fix up a Peugeot Dellorto PHVA that's on it's way to me.

The one I have here now has the slow running and mixture screws on the right hand side of the carb, looking as if it's installed on the bike, whereas the Peugeot one is 'left handed' regarding the screws. Would it fit the Italjet and would you be interested in the remains of the carb, as the carb body and plastic float bowl are OK and it's had a damned good clean by me already?

 

thanks for offer merlin, im going to see what his boss does tomorrow when I go to pick him up from work. if we get a carb off them then well make one carb out of the two to get him on the road. if not ill get it sorted with stevep, hes not that far from where we are so itll be quicker to nip down on the bike and get it sorted within a few hours. really appreciate offer though.

but at some point, italjet will be going to stevep to get properly sorted so its safe for my brother to ride the 15 miles to work for a few weeks until his insurance pays out and he can get something else. no way hes riding the R125 or the DR125 after today. both need to be in one piece to be sold - to get my triumph once Ive passed my mod2.

 

Silly question I know, but is there anything worth salvaging of the bike that he crashed? It's worth bugger all to the insurance company once they have paid out, but is anything worth making an offer for as salvage?

 

nah not really, it was a 1 year old lexmoto gladiator, ill also be talking to lexmoto, the frame shouldn't of crumpled and snapped the way it did in a 40mph smash. the only thing I can really see salvageable is the airbox, the rear light and maybe the seat. that's all. not worth making an offer, the plastics are all smashed, frames fucked obviously, forks are all bent. front wheel I wouldn't bother with, no doubt engine will be FUBAR.
ive told him to claim on insurance, buy a older jap 125 and ride that until hes 19, do his full test and ill get him a gs500 which a family friend is selling for £250 for him to do up.

until he sorts a bike out, italjet will do and hell have to take back roads to work instead of going down the A5.

 

well doesn't look like the italjet is getting done.

installed rear brake cable. brake somewhat works but is shite. even after a fair bit of adjustment.
gearbox is now leaking oil.
headstock bearings need replacing.
its just clicking when I press starter.
so close to just taking it to the fucking scrapyard and giving up on scooters full stop.

 

Check the rear brake pivot Scootz - the brake pivot shaft might be binding due to corrosion. If it's anything like my TKR was when I stripped it, it needs the pivot shaft bore cleaning and a dab of copper grease applying.

Just work through one thing at a time - that's how I'm working on my Pug.