Hey so a good friend of mine is trying to win 5 grand from a local radio station here in Seattle. The more hits his blog gets the better chance he has of winning. So do me, or him a favor and check out his blog once or twice, Thanks kids
Plus If he wins he will probably donate some cash to the community center I work at, so its for a good cause and all.
So my mini magnum project had a slight hump to get over this week. Something I never really think much about is headsets, you know those ring and cup looking things that let you move your forks around. Anyway I learned a life lesson about magnum headsets this week (they are impossible to find). Out of all this junk below you think anyone could get some forks onto a bike right? Wrong. 
After two trips to a bicycle shop I finally found some cups that kinda worked but the race was to small to sit right over the cups on the headset. I started going crazy over how stupid of a problem this was. Sitting in my apartment with a hole in my wallet from the 30 dollars in useless headsets I had purchased I decided to put on my thinking goggles. 
10 minutes Later I was dremeling one of the bearing cups to see if I could get it to clear the race. Sure enough a little home lathing with a dremel along with some precision sanding and I was in business. I was a little worried the only thing that was going to hold this bike back from being built was the stupid headset. Anyway I wouldn’t have figured any of this out without some help from Bob Barrans of Mosquito Fleet who has been through this dilemma as well. Crisis averted and now to build…… hopefully I will get some free time this weekend to slam all this stuff together.
So I got myself some sweet Vacation this last week. I spent most of it biking around some private resort called Sun River pissing off old ladies for not staying on the bike paths, whatever.
Anyway I also used some of my free time to get on-top of my moped problems. The pug’s clutch pulley was shot (and I kind of disliked it to be honest) so I traded it for some ebr’s and some shop work possibly. I spent the better half of Saturday rebuilding my old pug clutch and variator. It originally had some problems that would cause the bike to eat through clutches in about a week. The inner cheek was fairly well warped so I snagged a new one and pieced it all together. After that I spent a good amount of time changing variator weights and tuning. The bike runs better than it ever has and seems to be reliable enough (and fast).
Next was the Puch Monza , this bike still needs some work but runs ok, I messed with the jetting for about an hour and had a decent amount of success getting what I wanted from it. The next step for this bike is to install a aftermarket clutch spring that my friend Phil was nice enough to give me. This should help with my clutch chatter issues at takeoff.
I cant remember a time I had both my bikes running so well. It gives me a new dilema infact because I don’t know which one to ride now……
In other news I also have been piecing together a magnum. I have always wanted one since I saw Dean and Brendan’s mini magnums. I purchased a frame for a rather good deal on ebay, and also have a tank on the way for a not so good deal but whatever. Whenever I build a bike from the ground up I always like to clean things. I have found that scrubbing bubbles tile and shower cleaner is great for cleaning the grime off of most mopeds, and it smells better than carb cleaner in the house too.
This will be my new project bike, I will post more about it in the weeks to come, there is no deadline for this bike, so I am just going to take my time and enjoy it. So far for this bike I have acquired:
puch maxi ebr’s
Magnum frame
headset junk
Snowflake rims
tomos streetmate rear shocks
petcocks and all those goodies
some decent tires
and a bunch of weird stuff
the wheels are going to be getting sealed bearings and new brakes for my first project. Updates to come.
So I rode the Monza in P town for the rally as it’s my only running bike. It was super cool, I had a ton of fun shifting past kids like they where standing still, It was also nice to hang out with the fast kids for a change. The bike seems to be fairly reliable which is nice, I am still having some weird low end bogging issues but aside from that it’s rad. I have been scouring the deep caves of the interwebs in search of any info on this bike. The only info I have come across is a weirdly done u tube video and this picture. 
Updates to come, I just need to find the cable for my digital camera……….
So yup, I blew up something! I have decided that the clutch pulley is a little toooo racer for me. I know go big or go home, blah blah blah. Anyway, I would like to ride the Pug to work more, and the clutch pulley in 6pm traffic is a bit much. So I will be selling my clutch pulley to fund a new variator from Benji, and new old stock clutch from 77. The clutch will get all the nifty tricks such as the “3ball” and the “2 spring” to make it more pleasurable for rippin. Ps my real Pug is a beeraholic!
So after placing the oko and the hpi on this bike it runs! Its awsome I took it on a 25 mile round trip a few days ago and was very pleased. The seat sucks……..real bad. Aside from my ass hurting something fierce it was a blast, I would venture to say the bike does at least a solid 55+ . I am having a little trouble with the gear selector as it refuses to downshift into third but whatever its fun.
I have done a decent amount of work so far to the bike and will properly document it all once the bike is finished. I have a feeling the case is going to get opened up if Treats can snag me a roller bearing crank for this bad boy. More to come!
So last night was epic for me and my bike. For about a year now I have been tuning, wrenching, blowing up, slipping, sliding, and so on. Finally last night the Pug made a good 20 mile ride with no problems. To date I have to thank a few people for there help with this bike.: Master tuner and all things french, Naz (Michael Mike), My friend Casey G, Dean at Seattle Mopeds for letting me use the moped shop several times to continually rebirth this bike, and special thanks to treatshq for draining my bank account! Anyway with that said the pug is really great and tons of fun to ride, It still needs some top end tuning and such but other than that it feels solid. I am running an er3 variator and a clutch pulley as well at this point so I don’t have to worry about disintegrating clutches any longer.
To date this bike has received:
Powdercoating Job 150.00
Malossi bottom end 150.00
Malossi stroker crank 100.00
New bearings & seals twice 50.00
Ninja g3 150.00
Doppler Crank 120.00
clutch pulley 200.00
malossi Varitop 150.00
New tires and tubes 60.00
New everything else cables, levers, and headlight. 50.00
Chain 35.00
Original cost of the bike 300.00
Gilardoni Kit 160.00
Malossi cast iron kit that I blew holes in 120.00
Malossi head 50.00
Ignition 100.00
Total 1945.oo DEAR GOD, I PRAY MY WIFE NEVER READS THIS BLOG!!!
So yup french bikes cost a lot to make fast and reliable. Lesson learned. Time to start another one! Ps this doesnt include the other 120.00 in pistons I roasted. whatever! This has been spread out over two years, so I didnt even notice the money fleeing my pocket.
Monza update soon to come! (it runs)
So as much as I would love to keep all things original on the Monza its just not a reality. Parts are expensive and far away if they are even available as is the case with the seat. The seat was fairly toast when I removed it from the bike last week. the plastic had been repaired poorly several times over the years and I decided it needs to be overhauled. The good thing is that Treats HQ sometimes stocks these seats, or a generic Monza seat. Unfortunately he wont be getting any more in until the end of the summer and I am hoping to have the bike running in a week or two. So I was thinking of all the ways I could affix a stuffed animal to my moped and then I thought, hey why not rip off a friends Idea? My friend Brendan Barrans the fearless first mate of the Mosquito fleet has a miny skateboard for a seat, My ass isn’t so mini so I used a regular skateboard deck I had laying around. It looks ok and is actually really comfy for a temporary fix! (Dean did this first I guess…..)
So last night I was screwing around with Mosquito Fleet my local moped gang. I had spent several days tuning the Peugeot whenever I got the chance so I decided it was Moped Monday worthy. (It was close but no cigar) 
This time the pug got me all the way home though which is nice considering I have pushed it from U district and Golden Gardens before. Anyway Travis of MF said to me that if I could make it through the night he would give me a shiny new dollar, (that’s right one hole dollar). I failed due to a stupid decomp plug on my head refusing to stay put. The plug back out and then leans out my engine which means boom for those of you unaware of the physics of moped engines. Anyway all I got last night was a failed attempt at fortune and a burnt finger from checking to see if the decomp plug was tight. 
Fail!
