Puch 2.0

I gave up on the gazelle backorder yesterday when I saw that quarterkick.com had IRC NR53’s in stock. I like the look of these tires and I’ve read decent reviews on them. Plus, I don’t have to wait another month for them to show up. In fact, I ordered them yesterday. They shipped them yesterday. AND…they are supposed to be at my house today. Sweet.

Last night I spent 30 minutes removing the old tire from the front wheel and then polishing it in preparation for the new tire arrival. The chrome on the wheels is in really good condition.

Hopefully I’ll have some pictures of the new tires all mounted and ready to go later tonight. Maybe even a rolling chassis?!

I don’t like to wait.  I’m waiting on tires, triple tree parts, a tail light, and possibly an intake/carb.

The triple tree parts will allow me to get the handlebars put on and the controls started.  I can’t say I’m really looking forward to shortening all the cables.  That’s a pain in the neck.  They will also allow me to finish the wiring.

The tires will allow me to put the wheels on the bike and actually have a rolling chassis.  They will also give me a chance to finish the brake cables.

The tail light will just be good to have, so I can finish that up.

The new owner is unsure about the current carb/intake setup.  If treats gets the other kind in shortly, I may try to switch it out.

I got the bracket welded to the bottom of the seat yesterday.  I’m happy with how it turned out.  I did a better job on this one than I did on my own.  It’s tough welding something this thin without burning through the metal or burning the cushion.

Here it is bolted to the bike.

Not much to update from last night.  I spent a couple of hours working on the wiring.  Well, I only spent about an hour on this bike and then decided I liked it well enough that I started to do the same thing to mine.  I’m pretty happy with how clean it turned out.  Once the triple clamp top shows up I’ll be able to put on the handlebars and the cables.  I’ll take a few pictures of the wiring after that.

Check out the setup on my Puch.  It’s a 20mm clamp style dellorto and some intake that treats sold me a few months back.  I had to cut the sides of the flange of the intake so the studs would stick through far enough to get the nuts on.  I also had to grind some of the engine case to get the carb to fit, but overall it works out to be a very clean setup.

Treats didn’t have anything like that when I went to order the stuff for this bike. I knew I wanted a carb in the 19mm+ range, but this was all Benji could come up with. You guys will have to let me know what you think about it. It’s a probably a 19mm intake with a 21mm hose style dellorto. I’ve seen similar setups, but they are usually on reed valve kits.

I ended up taking about 1-1/2″ out of the length so the carb wouldn’t stick out too far.

This is what it looks like on the bike.

I could cut the flange off the intake and rotate the whole setup towards the rear, but I don’t know if it is worth it. It won’t affect the performance. It’ll just change the aesthetics. I think this setup will flow better than mine does, but I’m just not sure how I feel about the way it looks. It’ll probably grow on me.

Tonight I spent some time working on the Puch long seat and handlebars.

This is how the long seats are when you get them. They are way too tall.

My goal is to have the seat sit as low as possible, the same way I did my last one.

Basically this bracket needs to be cut off and lowered.

If you don’t have a 4.5″ angle grinder, I definitely recommend you get one. They are so useful for all sorts of fab work. Just make sure you respect them. They can cut you pretty quickly, so wear gloves!

All cut off and cleaned up.

One the last one I cut the bracket down and welded it into place. I’d like to see if I can get this piece bent or brakeformed into the right shape and then weld it on. It’ll be much cleaner that way. The ideal height of the bracket is about 1-1/8″. That leaves just a little bit of room at that the seat tube and the seat sits nice and level.

Since I had the tools out, I decided to cut down the handlebars. I think they are approximately 20″ overall now. That’ll be nice.

Well, I doesn’t really look like I did much this evening, but I did spend a lot of time in the garage.  A lot of it was cleaning odds and ends.  Some of it was checking out the pedal and drive chains (no pictures).  And the rest of it was getting the engine put back in the frame and figuring out what my next moves will be.

I finally sourced the triple tree part I needed to switch the handlebars over to a clamp style. That will allow me to get the low drag bars on there that I want. I also thought I sourced a new tail light since the one that came with the bike was broken. However, after receiving the supposed “excellent” condition light, I realized it was missing a mounting tab and the other mounting hole was all blown out. Nice [rolleyes]. Fortunately the guy was cool and refunded my money. That means I’m still on the hunt for a decent tail light.

I really can’t think of too many other parts I need now. That’s cool.

Speaking of cool, a friend from California was in town this weekend. He knew that I was building these bikes, but he hadn’t had a chance to see them in person. We went for a ride today and I let him ride the first Puch I built. He was pretty stoked. I think he was surprised by how fast it is. He wants one now.

I had a bit more time this evening than I thought I would and I decided to tackle both the engine assembly and the wiring.

Here is a picture of the new piston installed.  It’s important to face the arrow towards the exhaust port.  It’s also important to have the piston rings installed correctly.  I don’t remember struggling with that as much when I put mine together, but tonight it took me a few tries to get them in the right slots and facing the right direction.

Here you can see the cylinder and 70cc high compression head installed.

Check out the nightmare of a wiring harness that I stripped from the bike. Fortunately there is some basic info in the wiki on Moped Army that shows which wire is supposed to go to what. I didn’t take any pictures, but I was able to get the head light rewired. I need to pick up a few more connectors at the store sometime soon. Once the engine is back on the bike, I should be able to wrap up the wiring without too much effort.

As you can see from the pictures in the previous post, the transfer ports on the gasket from the new kit are much larger than the transfer ports on the stock engine.  It’s important that these match to get the best possible flow.

Ideally I should have marked the lines I needed to cut, taken the engine apart, cut out the sections, cleaned the engine, and put it all back together.  However, this will be the third engine I have done with this method and I think it can be done properly if you take your time and make sure none of the shavings enter the engine. 

Here is what it looks like now that I have it finished.

 

I can’t decide if I should tackle the wiring next or start the engine assembly.  What do you guys think?

As I suspected, tonight wasn’t that fun. I spent most of the evening cleaning up the engine. It was filled with 30 years worth of grease, oil, and grime.

Tomorrow I should be able to dig into the good stuff. It’s time to case match the engine to the new 65cc Metrakit. I’ll fire up the dremel tool and start cutting. See the black lines? That’s all the material I need to cut out.

If I can get that part of it done this weekend, I’ll likely start in on the wiring.