Moto-Guzzi "Neva-Lost" Board Track Racer

[Toofat2fly]

First try with new wheel on it. Looks like I managed to buy a 26" frame and 26" wheels. Would have been fun at this point to figure out that the frame is 24", hah, Haa....

Spokes are still too long, I have to grind excess off inside the rim. The lacing took for about 1 hour, since I screwed up it once. Truing took about 1.5 hours, since I had no idea what I was doing. Except the consept how to do it... It was not that bad and the truing stand borrowed from my buddy helped a lot.




The rims looked boring, so out came the MACK brush and some gold racing stripes were added. This part was easy, since you only need to spin the wheel and throw the brush at it.

The more difficult part was to try to match the starting and ending of stripe.....





...and now I think I have deserved a cold beer. I did not dare to have any while lacing or painting the stripes. I know too well how that would have ended. My wheels would have propably hypnotized me by spinning them.

 

[killercanuck]

Wow, great work on that sprocket man, inspirational. That's going to be one slick bike. Enjoy that beer(sss~)!

 

[happycheapskate]

This is really classy. The rim stripes are really nice. This looks very good. I like how the engine hangs down under the frame.

 

[Toofat2fly]

Some more junk attached to it, like knobby tires and gas tank. I dig the somewhat shorter version of my old belt, reminds me of old 1930's cars with hood straps made of leather;-)

I'll be working next on electric wires and building the front wheel. Tank will be pulled out, cleaned inside with acid and sealed with product called "Cream tank sealer". Just in case my testing with waterproofness would have missed something. I also need to rivet tank cap on tank with brass river and etch it.
Then comes the coiled copped fuel line.

I still need to either alter the carb manifold or make new one. I bought a 1953 Ford inline 6 oil pick up to make a air cleaner for the carb. Cheap and very odd looking. It has been cut into 25 pieces and I'm in process of finishing it.




Same pick up has perfectly fitting ID size tubing for carb manifold. I may end up turning carb backwards and in a 45 degree angle. Depends what comes out of my imagination, since performance has not much to do with it. However unlike everything else, I promise not to drill holes into it....











Not really sure what to do with grips. I have cool looking brown handlebar tape, to make it look "period correct". Or torpedo grips. or rubber grips. or cork grips. or something else... who knows...

 

[cannonball2]

Im gonna use friction tape, the real cloth stuff on my build. I have seen a few original pics of BTRs tha looks like thats what was used, also have seen the leather of course. We used to wrap out bike bars with it when I was a kid. Must have been "racer" inspired for us to have done it, the memory fades. Any way done in the right pattern for several layers to get a good thickness, should look pretty cool. Just have to wear the sticky off.

 

[monark]

looking really good,a little bit of speedway in this one with those knobbys.and aint that "cold one" so good after a hard day at the office

 

[Lurker]

Looking good I like the pin striping on the rim, real classy.

 

[Mr.B.]

The more difficult part was to try to match the starting and ending of stripe.....

Nice indeed!

I reckon if I tried that the stripes would be about 3/8" wide by the time I got done!



-Kirk

 

[Toofat2fly]

Nice indeed!

I reckon if I tried that the stripes would be about 3/8" wide by the time I got done!



-Kirk

That was about what the first try looked like. Thank god for mineral spirits. Second looked like hypnotists tool, mismatched by beginning and end 3-4mm. So I wiped most of it off again and last try went straight...

I dont know, its kind of fun to play with these squirrel tail brushes, but I would die in hunger before I could make a buck for a hot dog...

 

[killercanuck]

Third times a charm, for sure.

 

[Toofat2fly]

Took few weeks off the built and managed to do some painting in house....

This weekend was good, took the 16" moped front wheel apart, dismantled drum brake and bearings. cleaned everything, used Mobil 1 bearing grease on it, put all the stuff back together (with all 20 ball bearings!), gave a light "shoe shine" to the drum. Dismantled the 26" Monark wheel, sanded the rim, painted $3 Colonial red, cut 36 spokes, threaded them all and finally laced the front wheel. Trued on stand and added the gold stripes to match rear wheel.

Cleaned tank inside, filled with gas and it seems to be holding, nice...cut old T-ford radiator brass petcock and brased threaded tube on it. Fitted brass fuel line fittings.

Filled motor with 5 oz. of oil (clutch, yes, its a 2 stoke;-) Fitted exhaust pipe with gaskets. instead of using steel nuts I treaded brass nuts to match remaining brass on bike.

Fitted handle bars and brake/perch levers. Taped the handle bars with vintage brown tape and finished the bars off with aluminum end caps.







Since I am a lazy bastard, I am not going to waste time oiling the chain. I installed an 90 year old "hit and miss" engine drop oiler on the rear frame. FILL AND GO!






Of course its a joke, in reality it does nothing useful other than leak oil and spray it on your jeans...but you can adjust HOW fast it ruins the jeans.

 

[wayne z]

LOL the oiler is awesome! I have seen drip oilers used on old chained machines before. They had a brush on the tip that lightly dragged the chain, so no drips to be blown away. In fact, I think I've seen them listed in the Mcmasrer Carr catalog.

Maybe you could add the bristle end of a small paintbrush? You could adjustthe needle valve to just barely minutely opened, and it would actualy function quote good at keeping the chain lubed and clean. Still gonna get stuff oiley after a while though.

 

[Toofat2fly]

OK, I'll give a beer for anyone who figures out what this is???




Yes... and No.

No for condom storing device.

Yes for an old fire extinguisher, cut and fitted with leather straps on the frame. Cap is removable, so I can store the additional 2-stroke oil in it. The large knob turns and oil flows out and I can use the cap as measuring device for 2 oz of 2-stoke oil per tank.





Someone asked about how large the tank was, I measured it today, it is 3qt. Only a bit smaller than my Jeep Commander's gas tank, but I'll propably get further anyway...

Installed the licence plate bracket with brake light.




Headlight was a *****. It is a sealed beam 12v/55W unit, well... we all know that mopeds are 6v with 21W candle in front. Cannot really call it a light..
Did some questionable engineering on this one. I used diamond cutter discs to cut through the sealed unit. BTW, it is THICK glass, propably well over 6mm. I was waiting the whole thing to blow on my face and turn yellow and green due to 1940's French mercury fumes, but nothing happened. Not even a light "Puff".. I quess the Frenchies forgot to fill up this one? I now have a open YELLOW light, with 6V light retro fitted on it. I used aluminum disc to install the 6v light in it. The fire extinguisher was much more fun to heat up with mapgas. It was NASTY!

I'm pretty damn sure it does nothing for night riding, but it DOES look like a broken french dump truck heading your way!! Sacre Bleu!


Decided to make my own intake, since I cannot weld aluminum.




Thats as far as I got with the intake before it was time to B-B-Q hamburger patties and have few beers. Good news is that it was a georgeous day and I got to work outside on this project for a solid 10 hours. Cannot beat that!

 

[monark]

hei mini art, nicely done.cant wait to see the rest of it.looks a little dirttrack with those knobbys.

 

[Toofat2fly]

Here's picture of the "grinding process" of the headlight. I never thought it would be this thick... Diamond cutting discs ate the material really well.
I had to grind the opening oval, because the original 2 wire contacts were far apart. Othervise I would have just made a small round opening for the bulb...

 

[donphantasmo]

Man... Hurry up with more pics. I'm very interested now!!!

 

[Toofat2fly]

Some good progress again... Except yesterday. Yesterday was my "must-ride-today-day". Took off to north NJ attending a moped rally. Fun route, we pretty much polluted few small towns with 2-stroke smoke. This is how 81 mopeds look like...





Today was a full 8 hours with the Neva-Lost Guzzi. The intake was cut out of Ford oil pump pick up line, welded on a steel plate, which was previously drilled and matched with cylinder head.



The remaining "guts" of the Ford oil pick up screed ate the angle grinder and after some welding and fitting we have a "vintage" air cleaner. I must have used 75% of the oil pump pick up, not a bad purchase.
The screen will keep anything larger than squirrel entering the 14mm SHA carburator. I'll later fill the air cleaner with brass media, the stuff looks like steelwool, but its brass soaked in oil. Similar to what some older cars had air filters 100 years ago.




Played with the clutch and carburator and got it running.

 

[Dan]

Bet ya got some great reactions from moped folks. How many "Did you build that?"'s?

Air filter looks great!

 

[Toofat2fly]

Next to tackle is my absolute favorite, electrical. If there is anything I dont like, its electrical work. First of all there are no wiring diagrams for Italian Guzzi Chiu, only for its American cousin called Robin. Robin has external coil, signals, switches and brake light and... so on. In Italy you dont need this ****, you just drive. So I had to figure out what goes and where... This took awhile, since I am not an electrician. Anyway, once that was out of the way, it was into routing and pulling wires allover.

here goes tail light wire through some copper loops from garbage cable I found. Price was right too, free. The loops will keep things straight.








Here's the headlight, handle bars, horn and speedo.




I also lowered the seat 2", its still too high. Once I sit on the bike I'll determine if I need to bring it 3-4" BACK and another 2" lower, so that it is hugging the frame. I just have a sneaking suspicion if I do that, I will be chewing my kneecaps...

The Guzzi might be on the road in 2-3 weeks....

 

[Toofat2fly]

Bet ya got some great reactions from moped folks. How many "Did you build that?"'s?

Air filter looks great!

Thanks!

FYI, the board track racer is not done yet, so I took my 1977 Guzzi Robin for a ride. Its just a regular moped;-)
When it comes to the moped crowd, it will be mixed feelings. Some will like what was done, some cannot accept to chop a perfectly good moped for something like this.

Then again, its not rare. Its not valuable. Its not collectible. So, the way I see it, I do whatever I want with the stuff I own. If people dont like it, buy it before I do, because I OWN AN ANGLE GRINDER!!!