Made a lot of progress today. Even got the bike started! It runs great. It's going to be a lot of fun. But I wasn't able to finish enough of it to go to the track tomorrow. I needed to finish some brackets for the body work. I was out of time and had to call it quits for the day--still it was a great day of wrenching, because I got to ride it.
First up was was getting the water pump assembled. The revision kit had a shaft that was too large. This gotcha was pretty bad because I wouldn't be able to use this kit. I ended up using the old shaft with the new seals.
So with that worked out I went at the timing. This was rather difficult, and I even bent my new tool! But I kept at it, and eventually I was able to modify things enough to finally get it set.
Once that was taken care of I was able to button up the clutch cover.
Then I was able to tighten up the pipe again.
The next issue was the 23mm CP carb. The slide was sticking. I've never run into this previously. It took me quite a while to figure it out too. What was happening is the stop where the idle screw contacts the slide. The slide was deforming and then causing it to stick when the throttle was pulled. I was finally able to get the carb to work correctly with some rotary tool and 1200 grit sand paper action. Not happy about needing to do this sort of thing on a brand new carb. I didn't get any photos though, as I was trying to meet my deadline.
Then I went around torquing bolts, and nuts. I also added oil to the tranny, coolant to the cooling system, mixed up some fuel and poured it in the tank, oiled up the filter, and, added a kill switch. A lot of little things had to be done.
Then it was time for a test ride. Oh boy oh boy oh boy! Lots of fun. I first rode it in the parking lot with out any gear, and it was obviously too fast, so I put some gear on. Then ran it up and down the lot more than I probably should. It doesn't feel like a 50cc. It's got a lot more drive. It even wants to lift the front. This is probably due to the 12 tooth front sprocket. The clutch lever is garbage and I'll need to replace it with something better. The brakes work, but they need to be a lot better. So I'll have to attend to them. I have some Ferodo pads which will probably get put in there, and the fluid really needs to be changed out.
Okay after the fun I still had a bunch of work to do as the body work need to be fitted. I was only going for the tail section and the faux tank, but because I needed to make brackets I wasn't able to get done before I had to pumpkin. One of the previous owners did some interesting stuff with cutting up the stock tank and fitting in a tank from another bike--probably a Derbi Senda. He also had some velcro to hold things in place. I decided that I would use some of these parts, and see if I could make it slightly better. I've not finished yet so photos will be in a later post.
This is taking a lot more effort than I had initially expected, but I'm very happy with the progress, and how much fun the bike is to ride. I'm really looking forward to taking it to the track even if it wont be tomorrow (Saturday). ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Translation
