X80A motor?

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biknut

biknut

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Sep 28, 2010
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I can now speak with a little first hand experience about this motor. I fired it up tonight for the first time.

This X80 started right up. After a little warm up I was cruising the hood like a nut who thinks the bike he's riding isn't brand spanking new, and all the bugs were worked out long ago. Throwing common sense to the wind, a few minutes later I was miles away.

The exhaust is very quite. Even in spite of the fact that I did a little work on it. If I hadn't, you probably wouldn't even be able to hear it. I'll probably work on it some more.

All the motor actions seem top notch. The clutch works well, and has a fairly light pull. The clutch handle that came with this kit was a little different from my others. It seems maybe a little better quality. appearance, and finish are nice and the lock works good too.

The clutch seems like it has an average amount of drag compared to other kits I've sampled. Not better and now worse, but it seemed like I didn't need to fiddle with the adjustment as much with this handle.

Engine noise, like gear whine and clutch chatter were as quite as the best I've hear. It really puts my Flying Horse motor to shame, which always was very noisey right out of the box. This X80 is as quite as a SkyHawk 80.
 
biknut

biknut

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The extra wide mounts are very handy for mounting on oversize frame tubes. If it hadn't been for that, there's no way I could have mounted this motor in my little 17" frame.

Since I'm starting the breakin process I haven't reved the motor too high yet, but the vibration level seems low average to me.
 
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benutne

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Apr 22, 2011
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Glad to hear it's working out for you. I plan on getting the exact same motor soon but in black instead. Did you do anything to the kit before you put it on?
 
biknut

biknut

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benutne said:
Glad to hear it's working out for you. I plan on getting the exact same motor soon but in black instead. Did you do anything to the kit before you put it on?
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The only thing I did was open up the exhaust slightly, which is necessary, and I substituted a shorty MM manifold, which was needed because of my small frame.

Where have you seem these motor kits in black?
 
biknut

biknut

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benutne said:
Same place. LEB or BGF. Here is the one I've been eyeballing:

BLACK slant 80CC gas ENGINE KITmotor BIKE motorized | eBay
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That's were I bought mine, LEB. This kit might be a little different. It's hard to tell. The clutch arm on mine is longer than the one pictured, and it has a bend in it. It's a little better than the short one in the picture.

Also the information doesn't mention the front motor mount being oversize. Mine was a little over 1 1/2" wide. From now on I'm going to be looking for motor kits with this wide mount.
 
biknut

biknut

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biknut said:
That's were I bought mine, LEB. This kit might be a little different. It's hard to tell. The clutch arm on mine is longer than the one pictured, and it has a bend in it. It's a little better than the short one in the picture.

Also the information doesn't mention the front motor mount being oversize. Mine was a little over 1 1/2" wide. From now on I'm going to be looking for motor kits with this wide mount.
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I just noticed the muffler looks a little different too.
 
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benutne

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Apr 22, 2011
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biknut said:
I just noticed the muffler looks a little different too.
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Muffler is the same, it is just flipped in the picture for the black one. Can't speak for the clutch arm but I was planning on using a brake noodle to help route the clutch cable.
 
biknut

biknut

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benutne said:
Muffler is the same, it is just flipped in the picture for the black one. Can't speak for the clutch arm but I was planning on using a brake noodle to help route the clutch cable.
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The reason it looks different is, mine has 2 threaded studs coming out of the top of the muffler, and 1 threaded stud coming out of the bottom.
 
biknut

biknut

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LEB has a silver X49cc, and the same silver X80 kit I bought listed on eBay. Both kits mention the extra wide motor mount, but not the black X80.

It looks like maybe only the silver kits have the wide motor mounts. Also the silver kits show the longer bent clutch arm, and the muffler looks the same..
 
Greg58

Greg58

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May 1, 2011
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Just to let everyone know BGF has the angled clutch arm in stock, I got one last week. I'm going to replace the straight one to get the dang cable away from my leg!
 
greggasbike

greggasbike

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When you guys are talking about the motor mount on the x80 x49 , being a larger mount...
Does that then enable these to go on the larger tube schwinns they sell ?
What is better about the larger mount ?

I am looking into a BGF motor right now.... i think he is the same as LEB ...???

Thanks guys , on my third bike now !!
 
biknut

biknut

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greggasbike said:
When you guys are talking about the motor mount on the x80 x49 , being a larger mount...
Does that then enable these to go on the larger tube schwinns they sell ?
What is better about the larger mount ?

I am looking into a BGF motor right now.... i think he is the same as LEB ...???

Thanks guys , on my third bike now !!
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That's a good question. I like the wider front mount very much. I think the more common China Girl motor has a 1" wide front mount, and less than 1 1/2" spacing on the front studs. That's great if your down tube is 1", but if it's 1 1/2" like mine that means the motor has to ride higher in the frame. That probably won't be an issue with a beach cruiser, but on some mountain bikes that might be a big problem.

I don't think I would have been able to fit a X80 motor in my frame if it had a 1" front mount.




I got the motor down a little extra on the frame by carving a V in the block.

 
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biknut

biknut

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Sep 28, 2010
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You can't see very well in the picture above but the front mounting studs are 1.6" wide. My frame is slightly less than 1 1/2", so the studs clear the frame on both sides with room to spare.
 
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benutne

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Apr 22, 2011
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biknut said:
You can't see very well in the picture above but the front mounting studs are 1.6" wide. My frame is slightly less than 1 1/2", so the studs clear the frame on both sides with room to spare.
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Yeah, the wide motor mounts don't mean anything to me. I have a 1.75" downtube. I have to buy the adapter from SBP no matter what kit I get.

How difficult is it to paint a motor? I'm thinking of maybe getting the same kit as you since you had such luck with it but I really wanted a black motor to match my bike.
 
biknut

biknut

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Sep 28, 2010
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benutne said:
Yeah, the wide motor mounts don't mean anything to me. I have a 1.75" downtube. I have to buy the adapter from SBP no matter what kit I get.

How difficult is it to paint a motor? I'm thinking of maybe getting the same kit as you since you had such luck with it but I really wanted a black motor to match my bike.
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I painted my side covers with BBQ black and it's holding up well. I thought about painting the whole motor, but some of the graphics on my bike are silver so I left most of it silver. I don't think it would be any problem to paint it all black.
 
biknut

biknut

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I had to replace my exhaust gasket tonight. I remember looking at the exhaust gasket that came in this kit and thinking how it looked different from others I've seen. It really fooled me because I thought it looked impressive. It was metal clad on both sides, with some kind of gasket materal sandwiched in between.

What happened was a small bit of the gasket materal blew out from between the metal clad part. About 1/16" wide. It wasn't caused by the header not being torqued properly. I've been keeping an eye on it the whole time.

My guess is these particular gaskets probably have a high failure rate.
 
biknut

biknut

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Sep 28, 2010
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I'm sorry to have to report that after 3 months and about 550 miles this X80A motor has failed. What a pity too, because it was a strong runner.

I was riding night last when a nasty noise started coming out of the motor. I was just doing easy cruising at the time. I think the crank bearing has failed, but won't know for sure till I get inside it. Nothing dramatic happened, it just started making a loud scraping sound. I rode it 2 miles home under power after it happened. It still had good power.

I'm thinking something may have been wrong all along, because this motor always made a lot of squaking noise at about 5,500 rpm but sounded ok below that. It's been a concern from the start.

So far all I've done is remove the primary cover, and spark plug. When I turn the motor over, I can see the pinion gear looks like it's wobbleing around. Looks like the crankshaft could be bent or something, but I'm not sure how that could have happened. Maybe from someone installing the pinion gear with a hammer lol. A sound is coming out of the spark plug hole that sounds like the piston might be contacting the head now too.

I'm going to try to rebuild.
 
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