cowpuc

All good advice IMHO.. Personally, if it were my 83 I would check the water pump impellar.. 4 of the 6 84/83's that I have retired still had the OEM plastic impellars in them and 3 of those impellars were scalped clean of the plastic edges that push the water. It is pretty hard for them to cool properly if the water pump is not flowing anti freeze. If it were mine and unless it showed that someone had changed the impellar, I would rebuild the pump completely so I didnt end up with an iffy shaft/seals when replacing the impellar.. Make sense?

Thinking we got @Flyingfool over the barrel this year Corporal Newkirk!! Just got home from chasing parts for the 3 year old grandson we are watching (diapers) and a gorgeous Bald Eagle flew right in front of my car on the way home!! DEFINITELY a sign of good times to come!! ROLL ON BROTHER - ROLL ON!!!

While I LOVE synthetic oils and LOVE the additional miles between oil changes they offer (its always amazing how clean and full bodied the Quaker 0/20 full syn comes out after 10,000 miles in our Ioniq) and the great lube they offer... For my bikes that have wet clutches in them though, I still prefer and have always ran Dino oil as I like to change my oils as the oil darkens from clutch fiber plate wear. Run em hard,, but keeping good "clean" oil in em I always say. Keep in mind though,, I am talking about any of my scoots (like my 1st Gen v-4's) whose primary design is that of clutch/tranny sharing oil with the engine.. Separate those components so the clutch is bathed in oil that is exclusive to the clutch and not being shared with other areas (HD been doing this for years now) - full syn throughout = no problembo.. Another "IMHO's",, even if your going full synthetic,, not a bad idea to make sure your using full synth designed for wet clutches = no different than steering clear of High Mileage/energy conserving Auto Oils in the Dino flavors...

Nice Jack!! REAL NICE!! Speaking of shooters,,, since I can't shoot my 1911 or AR's here in the hood,,, thinking real serious about this little shooter (found em for 165 bucks refurbed)..

Yep,, start with Nozzles for WWW Jeff!! You are really letting me down over here,, it's Florida outside!!!

Yeppers @Patch,, that "code" says = under all circumstances start with a compression check LOL

YUMMY!!! Now ya got me urging to fire up the smoker Sly!! Aint gonna happen for a while,, busy playing with grandkids!! Just added two in 20 days!!! LOL Sounds like you and that bride of yours are living like King/Queed brother!!

I've done several of the Honda CT/CL/minitrail conversions over to chinese "kits".. Back when the chinese first bought the Honda patent, at a dealer show in Indianapolis = could by complete chinese "pit bikes" and scooters @85 bucks a piece as a dealer but had to buy by the container full (about 40 units).. Shortly thereafter, companies like Lifan started selling the conversion kits - personally I prefered their kits as they seemed the most worthy.. Maddy,, I have no idea what you got with your pirana? but the kits I used (use to get em complete with all periphials for just under a hundred bucks = that was for the 140cc, smaller = cheaper) all came with: wiring harness needed to get me to a regulator = had to buy regulator (cheap = under 5 dollars at the time), carb, intake manifold, cdi box, coil/plug wire.. does this sound familar or are you starting with engine only? Original Hondas like you are toying with were battery to points ignition and were 6 volts.. The new engine will probably not reguire a battery to run, it will probably have the typical trigger coil working together with an ignition coil at the stator = typical modern stuff. The lighting coil at the stator will be producing high voltage AC current.. That AC current does not care what voltage you convert to at the Regulator so you should be able to wire up to the original 6 volt rectifier if you want.. I never did that,, I just went with a cheapy 12 volt reg and swapped everything (batt/light bulbs) over to 12 volts = a lot more durable.. I know "Trail Buddy" used to make complete swap out new harnesses but its been a while = no idea if they are even still in business.. I never had to use them as I just used OEM harnesses on the bikes. Also,, if your going with a larger engine conversion you will probably have to redesign the pipe,, I converted stock pipes by Tigging on new flanges that would fit the larger ported 140's head to flange mount on several occasions... Something else to may be consider.. Dropping in a chinese conversion greatly reduces the "value" of the scoot - at least this proved to be true in my case.. I sold numerous restored Z-50 hardtails for over 7 grand back in the day.. CT70's of the era went for 5 grand and CT90's around 3500.. If you are thinking resale, you might want to rebuild OEM as those numbers drop greatly with conversions in the them = still wayyyy cool scoots though!! Just some xtra thoughts to think about...

MRI,, get it read by a good Neuro Surgeon. Vertabre damage causing pressure on nerve bundle in the spine does not always show up or stay problematic when it happens.. Get checked out brother = it's possible doing so could protect you from causing further damage to your back bone/spinal nerves .. The nerves up there in the "C" section of your back control lots of things including those area's you describe.. I would take a copy bof what you wrote to the Neuro Surgeon so he has an exact description of what you felt (or didnt feel) at the time = give him all the info you can..

Not sure how I missed the Beemer in my original suggest Sky.... He nailed Boss,,, DEFINITELY do the Beemer... Pick one up,, make it known that the plan is to break thru the 1173 mile bench mark you set with the SVTC by letting the MD varmints run it during that weekend.. Thinking instant triple the crowd at MD plus it would be fun to get to ride a 160 hp Beemer 1600 - aint many of us VR varmints had a chance to rope one of those either... GOOD ONE SKY!!!

You are welcome on the heart felt condolences about the loss of your Mom brother!! You are close on the start up detail.. Just turn the key on and leave it on.. Then rock the kill switch on and off to fill the carbs. The fuel pump is on some sort of a momentary "timer" that only allows it to cycle for a short time when you turn on the key.. If the bike has sat for any time at all, the pump will not fill the bowls on the initial key on timer cycle. So what you do is turn the key on with the kill switch in the ON position - do not turn the key off - leave the key in the RUN position and rocker the kill switch to the OFF position after the pump has stopped running from initial key to ON.. Now rocker the kill switch back to RUN position and listen for the pump to run - it will run for a couple seconds and timer out.. Now rock the kill switch back to off and then back to on and the pump will run thru another timed cycle.. Keep doing this until you hear the pump slowly die indicating the bowls are full of fuel.. After the bowls fill, rock the kill switch to ON - choke er and hit the start button.. Maddy,, you can do exactly the same thing by using the key switch turning to off and on BUT,, using the kill switch saves a lot of wear and tear on the key switch.. Make sense or do you need a short "Puc" video to explain??

Hi Mama,, Tip says Hi too!! Glad to see you posting!! We just got in from Cali.. Daughter there gave us 1 more grandson on the 21st - hot dogs for everyone = blessed again!! Made it home just in time for 3 year olds b-day party today.. 3 year olds mom (Daughter number 3) is gonna burst any day now with another grandson.. Collecting Grandkids is actually as much fun as collecting scoots = life is grand (grand children)!! Still love the boots sister!! Proof that Bum won the huggeroni.. Maybe Carl this year!! Gotta run,, gotta really cool present for my Grandson and got a 2 hour drive to give it to him and the party starts at 4 LOL.. Puc

1173 total miles after all this time of ownership?? Trying to give us a bad name Boss?? CONGRATS to Mike on his purchase of such an AWESOME machine!! Mike,, hope you have endless miles of smiles on your new scoot brother - YOU got a DANDY!!! Hey Don,, grab a new Wing for us to play with a MD will ya?? Or,, maybe a 2nd Gen V-Max? Havent ridden either but if you pick either up,,, maybe the MD group could top 1173 miles on one in just a weekend LOL.. Just given ya business my brother,,, I KNOW how ya feel..

Yeppers!! I have a lever action 300 Savage that now I gotta dig out and take some pics of - you lop eared lever lovin shooting varmints done expired me (typo intended).. LOVE this stuff,, wish I was home more!!! Keep the faith my lop eared varmint brothers!!!

Maddy,, I am sooo sorry to hear the news about your Mom!! Condolences my friend!! Concerning the starting of the scoot.. Right or wrong, this works well for me.. Always cycle the fuel pump on my 1st Gens (and R1 too = actually of them with a fuel pump) on and off with the kill switch before hitting the start button and rolling the engine up to fill the carbs with fuel. Just keep cycling it until you hear the pump come to a slow stop indicating the bowls are full of fuel.. Then you do hit the start button, battery isnt wasted while spinning the motor and trying to fill the bowls at the same time.. Close the choke, when it fires get it off choke as soon as the bike will take a little throttle/work the choke off as quickly as possible to avoid fouling plugs. I use no fuel additives over winter but choose to just start my bikes every couple months during winter and let them run to temp,, then throttle em up to run fuel thru the mains.. Have done this successfully thru the years with both bikes and snomobiles.. Works awesome in my case.. In my case, I have noticed that additives (especially Sea Foam) creates a "sheen" coating on the plugs which causes early fouling - especially hard on the small "D" plugs our V-4's use.. If I had your scoot I would toss in some new plugs and check the plug cap to wire connections.. By the way,, does your scoot have OEM wire wires for plug wires? I have also found that non wire wires on my 1st Gens is a major no no.. Hope this helps a little... Puc

Something I noticed years ago and in the spirit of playing a little devil's advocate here (flaw in my charactor)... Having crash bars that wad up fairly easily might not always a bad thing.. Years ago a buddy and I took his Suzuki Titan (500cc twin 2 stroke = anybody else remember those) over a fairly decent jump while riding 2 up - dumb kids we were.. We landed it just fine only slightly tipped to the left side. The crash bar dug into the dirt and we ended up going back to his dad's garage to, again, straighten out the bar.. All went fine until we noticed that the frame had been severely "tweeked" where the crash bar we had mounted on it was attached to the frame. We had modded the bar after a previous crash had bent it in an effort to stiffen it up a bit.. Looking back, and knowing how much of a pain it is to swap out frames on these modern scoots,, I am not so sure that I would not rather have a bendable/flexible crash bar that would take the punishment of a lay over... I know I have had to straighten out the crash bars on my MK1's several times thru the years = even had a couple but the tradition "slice" into the water pump tube before restraightening. I still wonder if that isnt better than a tweeked frame caused by a stiffened crash bar... Something to about in this sub freezing weather if nothing else..

Sly makes a good point here Neal,,,, all I need is a bigger head = I am barely able to grow hair on the one sitting atop my lop eared swollen noggin varmint beaner as it is .. Looking forward to your next installment on finding good winter weather riding gear for us @VentureFar!!! Reading your AWESOME reports with Ultimate sure brings a spot of to this snow covered winter wonder land!!!

Still thinking of and praying for her brother!! Any update you can share?

WOWZY WOW WOW WOW = BEAUTIFUL!!!! Thank you for sharing with us = well done!!

Just did a quick check for you VV,,, the early Triumph Tigers were twin cylinders = 650cc of volum pulling fuel/air mix thru a single 30mm carb and developing mid 40's hp off that arrangement. Stock, they had no valve overlap and, as such, the cams and air flow seemed to be ground more for torque (low R's) similar to your scoot. That being said and thinking of what I would do if in your shoes,,, I think I would search Ebay for new aftermarket 32mm carbs (x2 = 1 for each side). I just did that and noticed that 20 dollars per carb (Chinese nock-offs) is not unthinkable. Before buying them though I would double check to see jetting availability for what ever I bought - dont paint yourself in a corner by not being able to get jet sizes needed. I know that a lot of those Chinese carbs are exact copies of OEM stuff like Mik, Kien or PKW and the jets of such are direct replacements for OEM.. I also know that you can get Spigot manifold to carb adaptors very cheap off ebay (couple bucks each). For cabling down to the carbs. You will probably need a splitter. Honda used a cable splitter on the twins = CB/CL/SL 175 -350's - 450's and so on - I am positive other brands did too = it was common back in the old days. I would probably pick up a similar cable arrangement off ebay to cover that. Just make sure what ever you find has length to cover throttle to slide. I made my own cables for a while but found that when needed and/or in a bind = bicycle cables are workable for the lite pull of throttle and you can get them in all kinds of lengths.. If you had a Honda 175 throttle cable assembly and it was to short = open the splitter and replace the splitter to throttle cable to add length with the bicycle cable = works great. Dont forget to add a port into each intake manifold for syncing carbs. Drill and tap (or just smudge em in) then screw em in, slip rubber plugs over the nipples when not using for syncing. My son in law in California thought my grandsons go-cart was having carb issues (it wasnt, it turned out to be a valve had gone tight) so he bought a 100% brand new complete replacement carb for it for about 15 dollars (Chinese stuff) and THAT was for a complete CV CARB!! After fixing the valve issue and getting it fired back up, I slid the new carb on it - worked PERFECT!! Something I was impressed with on that carb was that the metering rod was actually cut for the "E" clip final tune adjustment which is wayyyy cool cause this makes a carb tuneable to perfection. Here is video of me playing with that puppy that shows the carb at about 10 minutes in if you want a pic.. You said thank you,,, you are more than welcome,, glad to help! Best of luck on your exciting project! Gonna be watching for the pics/video brother!! Puc

Another excellent review from the best of the best IMHO!! As always, very thorough - great detail and, as always - accurately written = from a riders standpoint (the same kind of people who actually use the information) as it should be!! Concerning the voltage drop at idle you experienced my brother.. I am sure you probably already know this but others reading here may not so I will toss in my backyard mechanican and wait for the experts to chime in and correct me if I am wrong. Your drop in voltage at the light was actually normal - in other words - your scoot would have done that even without the draw on its system of the heated clothing. The reason the voltage falls off at an idle is because the Alternator (Stator) is no longer tossing high voltage thru the Voltage Regulator during low R's and at that point you are reading actual Battery voltage. It is Wattage (which is actually a measurement of Amperage) draw that is the concern as that is what is being used. The volt meter is a good monitor for stator/alternator/regulator concerns because it will tell you whether or not the charging system itself is functioning properly. An example: When spun up off an idle, the alternator will produce high voltage AC current - if the regulator is not functioning properly you will see high voltage (above 14.5 volts DC) on the volt meter or, if it is no longer producing AC current your volt meter will stay at battery Voltage and not change when you rev er up. You did a SPLENDID job of explaining your concern with Wattage requirements (IMHO) on what you were testing in the article my brother and your mentioning it there is something that a LOT of Bike rag writers would have missed. From an end users perspective, again - my , its precision input on stuff like that that makes a difference between a real biker writer and the typical "reviewer" of bikes and bike paraphanalia.. Bottom line Neal = EXCELLENT PIECE OF WORK MY FRIEND = EXCELLENT!! "Ultimate" is fortunate to have you onboard! Love ya Puc

I did a fair amount of goofing around with carb conversions in a different part of life back in my bike/Chopper building days and found that following the total cubic centimeter parameters of volume being moved compared to other bikes/cars of those parameters to yield the best results.. I know I am very difficult to follow sometimes so to simplify: your scoot is 1300cc total for 4 pots (cylinders) currently designed by the experts to function on 4 individual carbs (being the non balanced shaft, lower redlined detuned/tuned for torque mid 90's RSTD I am guessing your stock carb size is 26 or 28mm?).. Divide by 2 on the CC's = 650cc per carb giving you 1300cc of volume passing thru 2 carbs instead of four = right?.. That agreed upon, and assuming you are planning on passing a 2 into 1 intake out each side so you end up using a basic side draft as they are wayyyy more plentiful to play with (which I would do too = stock, our V-4's use downdrafts).. Going from memory here, I believe the 650 carbed scoots of yesteryear ran best on 40mm total and/r maybe even under that amount. From my backyard/untrained experience, 47mm would be a tad on the high side (that carb you mention is probably/possibly associated with a HD EVO Sportster or Big Twin?). Because I HATE flat spots and hesitations when nailing the throttle and/or having to spend a ton of time trying to tune out such awkwardness = if I were doing the job I would do some investigation and find out by comparing bikes of the 650cc/single carbed versions and pirate that info from the experts who designed those bikes. Another consideration is: are you thinking of staying with CV Carburation? If I were doing it I would try to steer clear of the CV carbs (as on our OEM bikes) as the slide diaphrams are always another issue in maintenance. I would go name brand like Mikuni so a vast array of jetting would be readily available (I dont like painting myself in a corner by having to depend on only a couple sources for parts). A simple cable pull slide, horizontal mount (like found on 95 % of the scoots out there), press down choke lever 38 or 40mm Mik is where I would be looking. I also like Spigot mount instead of flange as they are much easier to, leak free, mount/adapt. Are you thinking Pods for breathers or you gonna run Velocity stacks? If I were gonna run stacks I would probably opt for one size down on carb size from whatever parameters proofed valid from my investigation.. Any of that make any sense at all? Also, all of the above is null and void (again, IMHO) if we are not talking a stock valve timing/cammed scoot.. Our scoots are OEM no valve overlap so no scavenging at high R's is taking place.. Drop a cam grind in that shows valve overlap in its profile and we are talking a whole different animal = IMHO of course.. Gone long winded,, sorry bout that... Still though, did I earn some brownie points to be applied to some pictures of your project??

WOWZY is right brother... At the beginning of this video a WW2 Veteran explains the big battleship guns of that time and if you go to exactly 12:30 into the video you can catch a glimpse of the Black Powder bag they used for a charge = up to 6 of those bags per BOOM depending on how far they wanted to toss the "VW" .. Unreal!! Thats a really good question on why they chose to use BP instead of a primed, brass cased cartridge topped off with smokeless.. I know the "VW" round they were tossing out of the barrel was banded with a band of copper/brass to seat against the rifling in the barrel to give it rotation = the "bullet" itself was steel. I wonder if the reason they went breach load BP bags behind the "bullet" had more to do with unavailability/shortages of raw material during WW2 (imagine the amount of brass they would have needed to supply those battleships with cartridges).. I sold the front fender for a 40's Indian Chief I had left over from a build years ago and was able to get $950 for it. It was an original fender and I found out after the auction that the reason it went so high was because during the war the War Department was confiscating all kinds of left over parts from manufactures for raw materials = things were tight. On the same token though,, you may be onto something concerning breach pressures I gotta hunch that the WW2 artillerly cannons were smokeless by that time but for sure the early Cannons of Civil War times were stuff n puff loader BP shooters.. Speaking of that, I remember as a kid watching Fess Parker as Davy Crockett hollowing out a log, filling it with all kinds of debris (like knives and forks and rocks) and chasing off the bad guys with it with one big BOOM

Another AWESOME thread you got going here @Condor!!! Speaking of Black Powder shooters, I was SHOCKED to find out that those great big battleship guns that would shoot a 2000 pound bullet out there to 20 miles were Black Powder shooters,, proof behind fact that BP is some worthy powder to load with!!!

Go to 5 minutes and 34 into the attached video. See the universal joint I am in the process of changing in the video? Look behind the universal at the output shaft sticking out, notice the 3 bolts holding the output shaft into the forward bevel gear. Loosen those three bolts up and the output shaft housing can be removed. Is this the housing that contains the bearing that has seized? If so, you do not need to pull the engine - just remove the housing and replace the bearing. Yes, this housing is shimmed for bevel gear tolerance. The shims are cut so you can slide them in and out fairly easily. If you replace just the bearing you should have no reason to reshim. If you replace the whole housing you will have to reshim to get into spec on the gear mating. I am not sure what the spec is on the amount of play you need at that right angle bevel gear set but I do know it needs to have some lash. I would guess 10 thou would be in the ball park. I am sure the exact spec could be found in a shop manual. All IMHO of course. Either way, whether I am correct here or not,,, all the best in fixing your scoot!! Puc