Piaggio Projects

new moped shop!

2011-01-10T15:23:00.001-08:00

and new blog! gonna try this one out, see how i like it. i need to transfer all my photos yet, but the txt of all previous posts there.

-->NEW BLOG IS HERE<--

superbravo!

2010-12-31T10:20:00.000-08:00

this was waiting for me when i got back to pittsburgh. it's so rad. i'm probably going to paint it, ~~fits in between the triple tree plates on bravo forks. it's going on my blue ciao.~~

well, they do not fit on regular bravo forks, as the slots for the fork tubes are too narrow. however, with some sanding i was able to fit them on my peugeot forks...which means this fairing is going on my simonini bravo bike.

so it's looking like that bike will need some new decals/themes going on...maybe something like this?

mopeds from around the world! (sort of)

2010-12-22T05:39:00.000-08:00

jamie and i went on our official honeymoon/vacation after a long and hard season on a farm near pittsburgh. we visited france, belgium, and egypt (to see my roots and "undisputable" masterpieces of ancient egypt). along the way i kept my eyes open and my camera ready for mopeds. after all, europe is the motherland for these fun little machines.

of course i ran into some peugeots and no motobecanes, strange

vogue in brussels, belgium
unknown peugeot in lille, france

103 in Paris, France

and a ciao! thank you lille, france.

and here's a very common motorcycle in cairo, egypt. but it's a jawa.

mopeds never really made it there...just scooters and some rad looking motorcycles.

soon to come once i return to pittsburgh:

1. the blue ciao, 80s fairing from a super bravo, square bars (if i can find em), and all sorts of retro goodness. maybe even some decals?

2. the green ciao, which sits in pieces awaiting powdercoating and reassembly. it's going to be a really nice stock looking bike, with all the turn signals, side baskets, yellow horn buttons, springer forks, minimal tail light, etc. with a twist. hopefully i'll be able to acquire the parts from jason to make it into a kickstart!

3. come springtime, a new belt for the bravo and some idle jets. mine's been getting shredded due to an erratic idle...

sHs rally "it's not you, it's me"

2010-10-04T16:06:00.001-07:00

photo courtesy of kz

wedding/mini-honeymoon

2010-09-28T19:39:00.000-07:00

images from lowell, michigan

images from saugatuck, michigan

and to top it all off, we snagged 4 NOS unstretched Marushkas!

yea!

2010-09-05T17:34:00.000-07:00

some of my roommates and i worked most of saturday on the simo bravo magnum (gotta think of a better name for that)
i enlisted their help so that it will be ready for jamie and i's wedding on the 18th of september.
here are a few photos of the day including engine rebuild, repainting and bondoing of parts, and enjoying some white russians!

mo-problems

2010-05-26T15:31:00.000-07:00

short update, crappy photos

2010-05-22T13:37:00.000-07:00

seat is kinda long. wish i had a longer subframe. i think the magnum frame/swing arm sets the wheel further back, oh well. i'm in the process of making a small seat and changing the mounting of the magnum seat for quick changability. i think a tiny seat would look really sweet too.put on a tail light, promptly blew it 2 blocks later. i'm going to get two more of them and hook them up to the same wire. they were $3 bucks from advanced auto.
doing some variator testing with sharpie. brandon had this idea.
and this is eliot's home made jet/needle case. i think it's pretty sweet.
oh, and i cut the back of my frame to fit the seat on. but it still holds the bravo took kit.

lastly, working on a new intake to allow for pedals. i think i'm just going the same route as rufus. but i played around with the idea of an intake made by Stage6 which is a french scooter company. oh well. i think just going with something i know works is better at this point.

i'm getting better at this including photos thing

2010-05-15T19:27:00.000-07:00

here's my seat. i spent a few hours at jeff and becky's cutting the frame back and figuring out mounting brackets. unfortunately i might have to lose the awesome piaggio tool kit that fits into the rear of the frame as it doesn't fit under the seat. however, i have plants to make a tiny seat that i can swap out when i want, for just riding single. cause man, after i chopped a couple inches of that tail piece off i just thought this bike would look so good with a tiny rectangular seat. i think handybikes has some.here are some photos of the engine when it was apart.
here's a stock flywheel that i got in that box of random parts. it's been lightened and i'm curious to try it out when i've got jamie's bike together (that's my next project, a complete rebuild of her ciao with new paint and whitewall gazelles, stock jug, single speed, pipe yet unknown).
i wasn't able to go to the shop earlier this week due to a thunderstorm, but i'm headed there monday evening and i've got two CDI flywheels to play with. i want to make one just a little smaller, like the simo flywheel so it actually fits in the case. then i want to really experiment with the other one and see how far i can take it.

here is another area that was milled on that stock flywheel.
well, no pics of the magnum seat mounted up, but it felt real good along with my new shocks on the ride home

cell phone pics

2010-05-11T12:01:00.000-07:00

here's a version of my bike from WB3. towel/random fabric tied with old hammock rope onto a skateboard deck, and i even had a tail light! even if it wasn't visible at idle and very dim at high rpms. take note, italy or die...vinyl letters, yeah man!
well, i also figured out that my rear shocks are no good with two people. i have a package from treats coming today with adjustable 280mm shocks, black ones, as well the jets i need as i'm too rich.

did i say too rich? in other news i soft seized. but that's because i'm an idiot and after fixing my exhuast leak i only had my sparkplug in finger tight. but i didn't soft seize...i seized a crank bearing. weird. all is fixed now though.

in terms of fabrications/the next steps with this bike are as follows:

i've been borrowing a flywheel from jasonw and i need to get mine machined to match.
tonight i'm taking it to my friend mark's shop and then i should be in business.

i've got a really nice magnum seat coming from chad which i'm super excited to put on. it's got the trunk and everything.

the buddy peds i got that go on a grande do not clear the baffle of my pipe. which is a huge bummer cause i really want double to be comfy and stylish. i'm thinking that the pegs will have to be moved forward. so maybe chop em off and weld em closer. who knows.

lastly, i really want pedals. i hate my pegs. so, i've enlisted the help of my friend jeff of sHs as he's got a mig welder and lots of moped experience. first i'd like to try and solve the problem by making a different intake to take the carb out of the way as well as increase flow, as i have a feeling that the malossi 4 pedal size intake i have is restricting my 24 mikuni.

if making an intake proves to me too much trouble, maybe we'll be driling holes and moving the spindle around on the frame, who knows.

it's been raining and is supposed to rain all this week until saturday, so i'm not sure how much progress i'll make with this stuff as my porch is my work space. slowly bu surely.

great progess! but no photos

2010-04-09T15:29:00.000-07:00

i've got my pipe welded up to match the giant 30mm exhaust port for the simo kit. eliot from sHs fabricated a flange and he welded it up in one evening. it looks mad max esque but man, it also looks pro, thanks man, i couldn't have done it by myself...ever.

i've completely sanded down my tank and used bondo for the first time on the dents, i think i might need to add a little more on one side still. but it's coming a long. i hope to get that done tomorrow and painted on sunday. i've got some peugeot forks and a seat from 1977 coming. it's gonna be a race to get it all done or at least ridable for WB3, but it's my plan. still gotta get an air filter. but everything else is taken care of.

in other piaggio projects news, i've got my blue ciao together right now and finished rebuilding and kitting an engine for my friend carson who lives in GR. i've got it on the ciao to tune it, got the 65cc DR kit and 13mm carb, cut crank. it's single speed with the malossi springs and pads and a leo vince pipe, it actually climbs hills really well, running without an air filter and an 82 jet. reaches 40 with the leo vince, but before we hacked and welded the new header and that simo pipe, it was hitting 45, but had not so good low end, although that was before i put those malossi springs and clutch pads in.

i just started my new job at sears working on small engines, mostly 4-stroke mowers and snow blowers, but i rode the ciao there one day and now one of the guys named Eddie Pepper is calling me "bradley two-stroke, straight outta GR, Michigan" and other variations like that.

more updates later this weekend

mr. sandman bring me a treat!

2010-03-03T16:07:00.000-08:00

not much to update. just wanted to let everyone know i'm still alive. still waiting on parts. need to work on cleaning up frame, bondo-ing and painting gas tank, putting in malossi gears, drilling out the rest of the 24 mm intake.

well, decided to go ahead and get a different simo pipe, as it was $40 cheaper, in stock, and will actually work out better with my setup, i believe.
i also got a locking gas cap for my magnum tank.

vespa mini magnum time!

2010-01-16T21:19:00.000-08:00

i drove up to coon rapids, mn to visit brandon and jesse of the garelli bad dudes for the weekend. i delivered my malossi engine to brandon, we traded some vespa parts as well. and then headed to his dad's welding shop for an all day marathon. it...was...SICK.

first, it was time for the bravo seat post to go to make room for the crossbar.

then i flattened it all down real nice and smooth and then took off some paint for the welding.
brandon shaped the crossbar and we got busy changing angles of things, and had it sitting in the frame after a few hours.

i brought some steel pipes from grand rapids to make the crossbar and the tank dampner mounts. jesse had his mini magnum at the shop and we were able to match up the angles and the tank placement pretty much dead on. it looks pro.

i also grinded off all of the bravo tank mounts. i also was able to cut out the hole in the subframe for the simo side intake...so sick.

obviously this is still just a work in progress, but man, i'm so pumped to be this far along this early in the winter.

brandon and jesse, thank you so much man, i couldn't have done this without your help.

also, brandon got his ciao all together with the engine and rode around in the snow for a bit. i'm sure he'll have some pics and maybe even a vid on their blog soon, so check it out!

more to come from the vespa mini magnumat some point, but for now, i'm calling it a night.

this is quite an update

2009-12-05T16:00:00.000-08:00

i worked with my friend, michael, on a grande i had sold him a few weeks ago. he's got an engine with the intake bored out to 13 and the window inside the case carved out and the crank cut. he also has a 13:13 Dellorto, Malossi Air Filter, and the Simonini Circuit. This is what the biked looked like before we startedHe wanted to put some lower handlebars on so we took all the controls off and then the stock handlebars, mounted up the new low ones, marked where we needed to chop to shorten them width wise, and then got out the hacksaw.
yeah, it went pretty dang well. we also shortened all the cables for the new handlebar height, switched out his left controls as there was a busted brake lever part, tightened up his brakes, fixed his tail light blowing problem (hopefully), put on a headlight, wired for that and a horn and a little hidden killswitch that sits underneath the back left side of the seat, it's so sweet how it's secretive. but anyways, here it is, done about 4 or 5 hours later.
whew! dang, that looks good.
i also worked on my friend, meagan's engine as she just bought a grey ciao off ebay that didn't have spark. i tried to diagnose it very quickly and thought i had figured it all out, so i split the case halves, drilled out the intake, put it all back together as i wanted to do that for her as well. when i tried to test for spark to see if i had fixed it, still no worky. so i need to get under the flywheel again and check over all the wires again. here are the photos from the case spliting process as i haven't posted those before:

flywheel off, here are the coils
i removed the little collar piece that the points rub on, that's called the cam, right? well, also, take out the woodruff key, so it looks like this:remove the nuts that hold the case halves together, like this.don't forget to take off your cylinder! also, i had ladybugs crawlin around and living in the fins of this one!

next, you can either put it in the oven, or if you have a 3 jaw puller, like me, you can just pop it off right away. also it can save you from having to put in a new crank seal as you won't damage it with heat, they cost 8 bucks a pop which is quite a lot to me. make sure you check the old one before you just leave it in there though, you'd hate to go through all this work and not even look at it and have a leak. some would say just replace it no matter what, which you can do if you want as well i guess.
anyways, i always put the crank nut, or whatever that's called on the end before i use the puller on it, as it can widen the tip and cause you not to be able to put the nut back on later, so it just keeps everything where it's supposed to be. you'll notice a pop once you start cranking down on that puller and then the cases will split apart like so:
here they are completely apart, yep. one of the bearing stuck in there, on the side where i wanted to bore out the intake, sometimes they both stay oh the crank, which makes it really nice to work on the engine as if you don't need to replace the bearings, you don't need to remove them (as they would bend and not function properly after removing them whether or not they were good to begin with as the inner and outer race get bent) oh, here's the intake before:
and the inside:
anyways, and i don't wanna get shards of aluminum in there where that bearing is, so i took one of jason's candles (sssshhhhhhhhh) and melted a little wax to seal it off as i didn't have any silly puddy. it seemed to work alright, although it was kind of a brittle wax, and so if i did it again i'd need to use a softer wax. also, i only did this because my crank seal was bad, otherwise when i would have gone to melt all the wax out after the cutting, the torch would have melted the seal, which would be dumb.then i got out the trusty 'ole rotary tool and started on iti only took a little off the inside, out the outside looked something like this, as this is a photo from a different engine, actually, the one michael has now:then i put the crank in freezer, as well as took a vaccum and sucked up all the shards that were all over and inside the engine, took one of my roommate's creme brule torches from the kitchen as we don't have a proper one and melted out all the wax. then i sprayed a bunch of times with carb cleaner just to make sure that all of the pieces were gone, then put a new oil seal in, brought the crank back and pressed the case halves together. i used a hammer lightly by the way. it should go back together pretty freely though, as the different in temperatures of metal help with that.
lastly, jason and i went to handybikes yesterday without knowing that they were having a liquidation sale as they hoped to sell the entire warehouse soon. it was our first time there and it was a dream come true. jason will probably have a write up on his blog which you can check out and if there are any extra tidbits i wanna add about the trip i'll put up another little post about it. but here's what i scored, everything NOS!

CEV all chrome short headlight bucket
CEV puch style bulbs with sockets for non sealed beam bulbs
CEV headlight clips to keep your bulb in, we got 100 for less than 99 cents!
Two sets of Domino Grips, still in the plastic
Front Brake knarp kinda things that you stick the cable through, kinda like a on road bike but for italian mopeds
Buddy fold down pegs
Franco Morini Variator inside cylinder piece (to try out on a stock vespa variator as it's a little longer)
Franco Morini Rear Clutch...COMPLETELY disassembled, or rather, jason and i looked up all the individual parts off a diagram so that i could build one from all the NOS replacement parts they had lining the shelves...it's going to be pretty crazy to put this together, and was FAR more expensive than i realized until after we had left (jason and i are kinda kicking ourselves, but it'll be something new to try out as they are very bizarre clutches but are interchangeable with vespa variated ones.
and lastly,
A Piaggio Ciao/Bravo/SI booklet that i'd never seen before, it's pretty cool.
You know what's also pretty cool. BJ from handybikes, i can't even describe him to you. Just so sweet and just wanted to make our visit special and gave us a tour, and understood our passion for mopeds, and showed us all these little treasures in the warehouse. he's pretty great.

crazy race car, not really sure what to call it

2009-11-26T00:34:00.000-08:00

images courtesy of www.pgzmodels.com

also, turns out that the grab bag was for local pick up only but i missed that in the german shipping details. i'm trying to negotiate for some of the smaller parts to be shipped still, we'll see. otherwise, i haven't paid for that auction yet, so it'd be like i never won it. but the engine has been paid for, so that's a go!

Simonini!

2009-11-22T16:14:00.001-08:00

*EDIT*
Photos of random parts! who knows what's all in there!I just won a german ebay auction...for this:24 Mikuni, 90cc Simo kit, Simo Cases, Simo CDI.
along with a grab bag of parts and hubs and other CDI and a wheel set and ciao forks and the list goes on and on, i'm not even completely sure what all in in that grab bag of parts. looks like some cylinders and head and carbs and HT coils. all in all, i spent 358 euros, plus shipping which has yet to be determined. I got it for a super good deal though. i'm so excited.

however, I'm debating whether or not to put my malossi engine up for sale once this comes in the mail. probably makes more financial sense. we'll see though more pics when everything comes! not sure how long it's going to take.

4/78

2009-11-14T05:09:00.000-08:00

i love the way top tank mopeds look, who doesn't? i especially like the way magnums look, again, who doesn't? as we all know, i love piaggio mopeds, but they never made a top tank!

i know this isn't a new idea but i still have yet to see someone actually finish one of these bravo top tank projects. my MINT frame is courtesy of Joe Woytasik, the tank i got from a random dude on ebay. it's pretty clean inside, but has a small dent on either side where it looks like the magnum forks turned into at some point.
but it'll be fun to strip the paint and use bondo for the first time and then do some duplicolor engine enamel on it. i still need to fabricate a bar and eventually weld it in. i can't decide if i'm going to strip this frame as it's in such good shape. it's like it's brand new. but i'm not sure if i'm sold on the color for this project. part of me wants it to be white or black, or maybe some other color. in any case, the subframe, is immaculate. looks like it was never even used (i know that's not true) but there's no grim or belt shavings...ANYWHERE.

here's a crappy photoshop mock up with some snowflakes i don't have, not sure what wheels i'll end up using on this project.
i don't have a seat yet, this is just a picture of a magnum seat i stole online, also not sure what i think of the tail part of the frame. i might need it to attach the seat, so i'm leaving it for now till i find my seat. it also has this really cool tool box that's just so well designed, i don't think i can get rid of it!
this bike is going to be really pretty though. winter project for sure.

2009-08-26T10:13:00.001-07:00

70cc polini
malossi reed valve cases
simonini calibrata
malossi/dellorto 19mm carb package
simonini CDI
malossi multivar
malossi belt
ebr crossbar
Bravo forks
vespa SI cross mags
2.25 x 16 SAVA Front
2.50 x 16 Hutchinson GP1 Tubeless Rear
Buzzetti White Sidestand

still learning how to tune a PHGB carb, thought i had it down and then soft seized last night. haven't taken the cylinder off but seemed to run just fine so i don't think it was too bad. if not, have a malossi 70cc on the shelf. i also need to tune the variator more, first i had too heavy lowering my RPMs when it varitated too soon, now i have too light not allowing it to variate all the way. we'll get there though. right now it's running high 40s, but that's with those lighter weights in. so we have room to grow here. there's a lot of buzz about mikuni carbs, who knows, maybe i'll try and finagle one in there someday, but for now, i'm very happy.

yes it is true

2009-08-17T22:34:00.000-07:00

i moved to kentucky, and put my crazy project bike together and rode it around for a week and a half. and then promply took it apart again. it is fast, but it i will be faster yet once it's tuned. also, i have a few things on my to-do list for it:

fix rear brakes
check.

the hub i was using didn't work in the cross mags. i was stumped as i thought all vespa hubs were interchangeable, however i couldn't get any of the ones i had to grab enough in these cross mags. it took me a long time, but i figured out that there at at least two types of vespa mag hubs. the only difference i could see was that the metal brake plate that has the actual pad on it is shaped differently. the one that works in the cross mags has a sort of triangle point in the center whereas the other ones are completely round on the inside. pics to come of course.

the engine mount holes aren't long enough on my frame for the multivar and malossi belt, so i have bad belt tension right now, in fact, i was surprised i could even start it, let alone start it no problem every time.

front axle barely fits in forks. i seriously have just a few threads holding one side on. i'm supposed to get bearings in from crush bearings this week, maybe sealed bearing conversion before ghost ride? but probably not. i have a bravo spoked wheel set and the axle on that hub would fit perfectly, however it's stuck in that hub at the moment. i should probably focus on getting that unstuck rather than mess with sealed bearings this close to the rally. maybe some pb blaster or something.

i also need a new headlight bulb, i really wanna hook up my horn too, but i need to figure out where to mount it. the bike is very simple looking and so just slapping it on will make everything not so good.

again, pics to come soon, once it's back together.

PIAGGIO EXPLOSION!

2009-05-18T13:58:00.000-07:00

last weekend i had a good time putting together jamie's green ciao, frame compliments of gabeb. i was missing some parts though, so i had to take parts off two other ciao frames i have (the red one in the photo and some other stuff i took off of my top tank project's frame a few months back).

here it is:

hardwired w/horn!

stock cylinder

bored out intake

cut crank

13:13

single speed with malossi black springs

eventually i want to put the lightened clutch shoes on but can't get them to fit in right now. i also want to put the 80mm pulley on, but if the acceleration is crappy, then i'm gonna just wait and variate it when i get down to kentucky. i have two variators waiting for me there.

oh, and i bought a giant bag of soil on saturday and carried it on the back! it was great!

here's the cut crank
bored intake
inside, not the smoothest job, but i was cutting it real close on that top edge there and was worried i was going to wreck the rotary intake seal, so i smoothed it out as best i could without getting too close to it.
before
before
wa-bam!

ciao top tank project

2009-05-08T13:00:00.000-07:00

as i may or may not have mentioned in a previous post, my performance ciao's tank has a hole in it...i found this out after i left evaporust in the tank over spring break and came back to an empty tank and yellow stains on the floor. bummer. however! it was either sean finch or luke v of the ghost riders, or maybe someone else, maybe jason, i can't remember. anyways, they were just like, well, why not make it a top tank...man, immediately it made me almost glad i had a hole, as a mini ciao top tank would be sweet! anyways, here's the mock up i did today on the computer. i just painted over a picture of my modified frame, and i have this mostly red plaid fabric, reminiscent of fabric used for kilts, for the seat cover (obviously not pictured).

i don't have my camera here at work. i have more pictures of other moped related things i've been meaning to post but haven't gotten them off of there yet. i will soon, i've been moving out of my house and working a lot. one last thing, i finally got coupling nuts for that mini pipe. it's pretty sweet, although my variator plate is shot so it's hard to really judge it yet and i need to re-tune to really see how well it performs! whew! i also almost have jamie's ciao put together. i bought a kelly green frame from gabeb and am hopefully going to finish it up this weekend. again, more pictures to follow.

in the frenzy of things...i did not take any pics

2009-04-08T21:10:00.000-07:00

but i'm going to as i'm splitting the cases again real soon, but i bored out my intake to 13, but not the window on the inside of the case, but i think i should so i'm going to open that up more when i take it apart again. i also cut the crank quite a bit, again, i'll take a pic of that later to show.

i'm using a stock cylinder, 13:13 carb, 66 jet, leovince pipe, and hi flo air filter. unfortunately i don't have tuned correctly right now, but i got it to run however have only seen a loss in bottom end and no top end increase...

i'm pretty sure i need to upjet, but i'm not sure how much. i tried running it with no air filter which it would only start with the choke on, it won't run with the stock air filter, and will start with the hi flo filter on without it choked.

i'm hoping to split the case halves again this weekend as i really wanna open that intake window up before whiskey business II which is next weekend (i leave wednesday night to drive down). i've also got a bunch of trading cards to finish for the rally pack! lots to do, not so much time!

i'm planning on bringing a back up stock engine, just incase i do these mods and can't get it running. i don't wanna be stuck without a running bike when i'm there, even if i only do 25, it's better than nothing. sorry for no pics, i'll take some this weekend. i'm helping my friend johanna get her moped out of winter storage for a tune up on saturday, maybe i'll have some time work on this project as well, as i'm predicting that her's won't be too hard to clean up and get running.

variation

2009-03-13T13:16:00.000-07:00

i variated my blue ciao today. switched the hub with one of my grande hubs, and put on the 8 roller piaggio variator i've had sitting around in my basement for months. i tried to tune the variator but i think my weights aren't heavy enough for it to variate all the way, about halfway up, and i only got up to what felt like 20 even though the engine was reving really high. i don't have any weight sets, so i'm stuck for now. but it was really good to be outside in the sun working on my moped and not being cold for once. i did have really good bottom end...which was a nice change to the single speed setup.
one bummer though, is that the first time i put the variator back on after changing some weights i wasn't looking and didn't line up the flat spots on one of the plates and the center cylinder piece. i cranked it down tight and noticed when it was running that it was wobbling a little. i took it off again and noticed that i bent some of the metal one that plate which is a big bummer. i bent it part of the way back with the tools that i had, and it was straighter, but i think i'm gonna need to go back and do it again more precisely and hopefully get it back to the way it was. i was really bummed because i'd only used it for about 5 min and already bent it...
this variator isn't super performance or anything, it's basically the same as stock, but has 8 weights which means i can tune it easier as the stock one only comes with 5 weights, making it off center if you take out weights.
no pictures in this post...sorry. i'm at work. not really sure if there'd be much to see anyways.

boreing out the intakes

2009-03-06T08:49:00.000-08:00

13mm intake makes a huge difference from stock, i want all of my bikes to be bored out to 13mm. the kinetic tfr engine is on the bottom, piaggio oil injection on the top. i'm headed down to louisville today to hang out with jason and work on these. my girlfriend jamie, and my friend lydia, are looking to work on a farm this summer and are interviewing at one in louisville, so it works out nicely. along with working on these engines, jason and i are also having a huge parts swap. i'm getting some rear clutches and hubs. he's getting a grande frame, fenders, tail light assembly, and some other stuff. i'm excited.
i've been working on jamie's bike recently. i've been trying to figure out how to mount the HT coil. i'm putting the kinetic on her bike as it has CDI, thus i'm hoping it's more reliable. above are two stock HT coils, i want to use a stock one as they mount closer to the frame on the ciao, and i want to be able to use sidecovers eventually. the other night i drilled out the mounting holes on the HT coil on the right, so that an engine mount bolt could hold it in place. on my blue ciao the HT coil has a really cool mounting bracket that work with the existing engine bolts which i really like. now hopefully this stock HT coil works with the CDI coils...
the CDI coil is on the left and it has a strange mounting bracket that's compatible with TFR frames, but not that great with a ciao.
i was also looking at the crank differences between the vespa crank and the kinetic. above is the kinetic, which has two holes drilled out.
i wonder if this is stock or a mod? if it's a mod, i wonder if the crank is unbalanced now. i'm also worried about the woodruff key slot in the crank as it seems to have been damaged. the slot is bigger now, looks a bit scarred, and the key doesn't sit snuggly inside, it falls out very easily when i try and mount the flywheel. this is not the case with the vespa engine when i mount the flywheel.
here's jamie's ciao right now. i just wanted to put another pic up as the first one was all weird cause it was hanging and was awkward.
well, gotta go finish packing!
i'll post some before and after pics of the intake when i get back, as i feel there isn't very good documentation of this thing, even though people do it all the time. p.s. i got my pipe in the mail the other day. calibrata with the black baffle from treats!

puttin' it together

2009-02-17T14:01:00.000-08:00

last week peter and i pressed my malossi cases together with the top one crank. here it is together with the 19mm dellorto PHBG carb/malossi filter. i had to bend back one of the cyclinder studs as it was bent in from the last owner...it was dropped or something. anyways, it's straight as can be now, so that's good.

i still need to get the hardware to mount the intake plate on, as somehow that was missing. i also noticed that it was going to be tough to get the hardware to fit as it tightens down on the two bottom bolts. terrydean said he had to dremel a little of the outside of the case away to tighten it all the way. looks like i'll be doing the same as well.

i'm going to be picking up my crossbar to weld on the frame tomorrow. i'm thinking one with an outer diameter of 1.75", coincidentally the same outer diameter of the vespa gas cap.

i'm planning on using my piaggio 8 weight performance variator for now, probably not as good as the malossi multivar or the polini var, but it's what i got for now. my kit should be coming in the mail early next week. also plan on getting a 22mm calibrata pipe in the next few weeks as well as the racing gears once quarterkick gets them in.

other than those things, i think i'm set engine wise, just need to work on cleaning up the tank, strengthening the welds near the gas tank and rear hard tail strut areas, welding the crossbar and seat on. then getting new cables, grips, tires and tubes. gazelles are said to be the best, so i'm looking for ones that are 2.5"wide instead of the stock 2.75" as they are too fat for the ciao frame.

the powerband

2009-02-10T15:21:00.000-08:00

so last night i worked on my stock blue ciao, i got it running but not running well when i first got it. it would idle sometimes and run at full throttle fine, but usually died when i stopped at a light or sometimes when i brought it off the stand after getting it going. thought it was just the wrong jetting. turns out it's more messed up. but of course, not unfixable.

the piston has some gashes in it, looks like it seized in the past. my friend luke, without even seeing my piston, diagnosed it as bad compression. so i'm going to replace the piston and the rings with a used piston and some new rings.

while working on it at the ghost rider's shop, luke had me try out his honda express. which in general i've know to be slow but fun...but he has done a lot of crazy things to it.

for the first time i experienced what it was like to hit your powerband. i never hit mine with my leo vince, probably because i was variating too early. let me tell you, it was one of the most amazing things i've ever experienced on a moped. such power, it was awesome, and made me smile a lot. i'm guessing it goes mid 40s. he put a variated hobbit setup on it, i believe, but i could be mistaken.

anyways. it has definitely got me motivated again to get back in peter's shop and tinker with my performance ciao i'm building, as i haven't touched it for a few weeks. also, it's been a lot warmer here in grand rapids lately, which is very unusal, but of course i'm not complaining. today it was 63! crazy! made me wish i had a running moped...

woody

2009-02-07T09:05:00.001-08:00

i originally saw a ciao with white walls and knew immediately that i wanted some. then i started looking into a way to make the side panels a bit more snazzy and was inspired by woody station wagons from the 1950s, like this one.

I have this idea for a ciao with wood paneling and white walls. i know that the 17" white walls are almost unfindable, but you can buy paint specifically designed to be white walls on tires. my friend jordan has a good idea of how to evenly and circularly paint the tires without painting the rims or hand painting off the rim, so i think i'm gonna get this paint sometime. as for the wood paneling, i'm going to be working with my friend aaron cutting and sanding and planing and staining and eventually gluing it together.

i mocked this example up in photoshop.

i also have a metal basket on the back rack and would like to fabricate some wood accents or a completely new wooden basket type thing for it. i'm leaning towards a completely new one as the basket i have is nice but isn't as streamlined.

p.s.-i have no money for any of this right now, but it's an idea i want to do in the future.

ciaos

2009-01-22T07:38:00.000-08:00

this is going to be the really fast one. i already have my malossi case halves with the TOP crank and bearing installed, as well as Simonini CDI, the 19 mm malossi carb/air filter setup, and the piaggio 8 weight performance variator. one of my cylinder studs is bent though. so i need to take that out and bend it back or buy new ones sometime in the near future. i also have a 65cc parma kit that i need to trade back to quarterkick. they're working on getting me the malossi racing gears and the 70 cc malossi kit.so i stripped down the frame and put the bravo forks on. it took forever to get the stock ones off. pat had a good idea to use a support beam in the garage in between the forks to wiggle the handlebars free. i also had to grind out the area where the axle rests inside the forks to accommodate the larger axle of the grande wheels. i also cut and ground an area on the side of the forks to allow for the nut to go on. i forgot to take specific pictures of this, so next time you'll understand.
i have run into a problem with the rear wheel. it has been flat for sometime and when i put it on the frame it was barely too wide and it rubs in one little spot on the right of the subframe. i'm guessing it's doing that because it's flat and the tire is rotted out and cracking. i have a new tire, 2.75x16 inches (the same size as the original) that i was trying to get on last night but without tire levers it was hopeless. the new one seems a lot skinnier though when it was halfway on, so i'm hopeful that it will work. i'd prefer to use my grande wheels as i like the mags and the beefiness of them. ciao wheels just seem too small for this project.
this is my pipe. or at least one of my pipes. this is a polini pipe manufactured in the 1980s (as i'm told) and is super super short. it's only about a foot long. i'm going to have to try and figure out how it mounts as well, as there is only one bracket and it seems it attaches to one of the cylinder studs? who knows.
i also have a leo vince and a couple stock piaggio pipes. i was never really impressed with my leo vince but it's also been brought to my attention that i might have been variating too early and i never reached my powerband. so i'm willing to try and tune my variator differently and try out both of these pipes again.

last night i moved the red/orange ciao down to my basement to start on it. i already have the engine and everything. i'm planning on putting a kinetic TFR engine with CDI in it. i'm not sure if i'm going to do any intake porting at this point, but i do have two sets of dellorto 13/13 carbs and malossi hi-flo air filters. so it would make sense to put a set on this ciao to give it some more power. this bike is for my girlfriend, jamie, by the way. we're going to be working on it together.

the beginning post

2009-01-14T13:48:00.000-08:00

my fondness for mopeds began in october of 2007 when i traveled down from grand rapids, mi to louisville, ky to spend a weekend with my friend, and bourbon bandit, jason wadowski. i remember when i called him up months earlier to hear that he had sold his car to what i believe was a scrap metal yard for a couple hundred bucks and found himself a yellow jcpenney pinto on craigslist.

this was the beginning of his love of mopeds and later would be how i would come to love them as well. In the spring of 2008, and after much debate and saving of money, i traveled down to louisville another time to work on piecing together a vespa grande. we rebuilt the engine and a few weeks later the ghost riders helped me get it started and i was on my way. hooked i suppose.

in june of 2008 i acquired my next grande, a rare oil injection model that had all the covers and turn signal box. this one i found on craigslist in detroit and was in really good condition. soon after i had my setup from the first grande on the second one, a week later i rode it in get stuffed, the grand rapids moped rally, and then have it stop running. i began working on an organic farm and had zero time to fix it.

both grandes sat in my garage for months until mid november when the farm season ended and i finally had time to work on them, but not the weather to ride them. eventually i took both grandes completely apart in my basement and cleaned them all up. soon after christmas i found a vespa ciao on craigslist that was also in good condition, although not running. a few hours of work and it was zipping around the frigid but dry streets of grand rapids.

last week i traded my first moped, the red grande, for a collection of vespa parts, kinetic engine w/CDI, another collection of malossi performance parts, and two beat up ciao frames.

traded:

received:

the start of these two ciao projects has prompted me to begin this blog to document my progress on them, as well as the rest of my "piaggio family." eight months ago i never would have thought that i would own 4 mopeds. i'm so blessed, and lucky. jason is also building a ciao this winter and has said the he wants to start a blog as well. i will post the link when it becomes available.

EDIT: it's now it's available, Running to Stay Free