Aprilia SR50

Aprilia's SR50 defined the 'sports scooter' category when it was first released in Europe in 1992.  It was the first scooter with 13" wheels and front + rear disc brake. Add liquid-cooling and you have yourself a high tech, very capable machine. Of course the 2-stroke  carbureted Minarelli horizontal motor is arguably one of the best designs in the scooter world. It came to the USA in 1999, and was also available with a Morini motor which had direct fuel injection, known as Ditech.

I picked up this sweet 02 Ditech model, the bodywork was nearly flawless, but it would not run due to fuel injection issues. Unfortunately the early models (99-03) were prone to alot of finicky problems. I had never worked on a fuel injected scooter so it seemed like a good opportunity to learn a few things...

I also found this carbed Minarelli model, this one was a runner  with a Polini 70cc on it, and an Arrow expansion chamber pipe on it . Super Sweet!

However the body was a bit rough on this one, it had been crashed pretty hard and there were lots of cracks, scratches, and broken mounting points on the panels. 

Pretty cool color though, kind of a yellow-green pearl. Looks good in the pictures, eh?

Well I spent a good bit of time researching the Ditech system and diagnosing faults via the ECU, this beast was flashing like 17 out of 20 possible error codes!! So I concluded that it was a money pit because all of the components in the system are $$$ ... I am a carburetor guy anyway, I like the old school approach to internal combustion. If it has a computer, I am really not interested. I decided to just swap the 02 body work to the running scooter, I really like the Black and red combo and the race replica graphics. 

The stock manifold had a restriction to match the original 12mm carb. I found a nice big bore one and man she woke up! Top speed went from 50 to 65+! I added a Malossi variator and clutch, made a custom rear hugger from an Elite 80 fender and got a new Arrow pipe to replace the tired old one. I split the cases and replaced the crank bearings and seals, topping it off with a fresh hone on the cylinder and all new gaskets to fix a leak at the crankcase. This scooter is such a blast to ride, it accelerates hard enough to lift the front tire and just pulls like a freight train up to 60 mph. In a full tuck downhill I hit 68! The handling is akin to a sportbike and the brakes are phenomenal; it sounds so good I find myself blipping the throttle all the time just to hear it! My new favorite scooter :)

Spree Time

This Spree arrived at Hyde Park Scooters last summer, I never was particularly interested in these because they are just so small and slow in stock form. This one caught my eye because it is a cool color combo and it was going cheap!

I got it running right away after removing 10 year old gas and sludge from the tank and carb.  It wasn't awesome though, the piston and cylinder were pretty rough. It always amazes me how these classic Honda's will run even in a very rough condition, its like they refuse to die easy!! I had a 44mm piston and cylinder bored to match which I transplanted on the engine block, this gave the Spree a much-needed boost. After the engine work I tackled the cosmetics, she was pretty clean but had some surface rust on the chrome. I coated the front basket and rear rack with spray-on bedliner and polished the plastics. The muffler got a nice coat of black engine enamel. I had a good set of tires from another scoot so I spooned these on the freshly painted wheels. This was really a budget build for me,  nothing fancy. I sold it quite cheap, probably too cheap because it was sold 15 minutes after I posted it!!!

This is how it appeared the day I brought it home.

Suzuki TS185

I made some progress on my motard project this weekend. Replacement tachometer and speedometer are mounted and functioning. I also found a great replacement seat since my original was rusted right thru the pan and unsalvageable, even for me! My rear exhaust mount was cracked so I took the time to weld that up tight. I also painted the muffler with high-temp flat back and coated the rusty rear shocks with a nice semi-gloss black engine enamel. Its funny how changing just a couple details can really boost the overall look of the machine. I am getting excited about this build!

Eventually I plan to tear the whole bike down to the frame so I can do a complete engine rebuild.  I also want to sandblast and powdercoat all the frame pieces and bracketry. The color scheme will be yellow and black, like a badass bumblebee!

88 Elite 50 ES motor swap

In 1988 the Elite 50 got a new look for the US market. The scooter actually got a bit smaller that the previous years model, and unfortunately Honda went with a single speed motor instead of the variated model which powered the 1987 Elite.

I got this one in pretty good condition, the engine ran but it would struggle to top 30MPH and she was kind of noisy, generally a symptom of internal issues

Just a beautiful color combination on this one, factory paint still shining. 

Poor little motor was tired though, and I prefer my scooters a little faster! Luckily I happened to have a clean variated 87 Elite 50 motor. Lets get this scooter to haul ass!!

I got out the grinder and channeled the new motor mount to fit in the narrower chassis. Here it is as a mockup before I welded the side plate back up.

The upper shock mount was relocated 2 inches aft to accommodate the longer  motor and preserve the original geometry engineered by Honda-san!

Got an awesome new hand-stitched seat on there, in this condition I was able to put some miles on it and make sure everything worked as it should. I had a few interference issues with the inner fender, but a few strategic cuts sorted that out...

Front wheel and engine case repainted. I also painted the inner body panels charcoal grey.  More miles to get everything run-in. Man this little beast flies now!  What a fun ride, easily topping 40MPH!!

There was alot more plastic to be cut away so the body panels would fit nice. The larger airbox was a real tight fit, but I took my time and trimmed things very cleanly. 

Oh, Boy! Its all back together now and looking good, This color was just popping when contrasted against the black motor and graphite wheels. Got some fresh tires and tubes, too!!!

What a sweet little Honda. I sold this to a very nice lady who had never ridden a scooter before, man I was scared when she took her maiden voyage up my driveway. But she was great, took to it like a duck to water! In fact she liked this scooter so much she packed it up and took it with her when she moved back to New York. Sayonara!! 

1974 Honda MR50

This was a fun project, Honda Elsinore mini-bike. My client on this one had this bike in his family since new. As a kid he and his cousins would ride it all over the place, it was always ridden hard and put up wet, haha! It was in need of a new top-end as the rings were worn out and the cylinder was scored up. The Kawasaki green fenders were NOT what Mr. Honda had in mind :)

I went ahead and cleaned up the bottom end too since it was leaking oil and the drain plug was stripped, overall things looked pretty good in here. The gears were all clean and the shift links were tight. I replaced all the o-rings and case gaskets.

The jug was bored 1.5mm over with a matching piston and ring set. New head and base gaskets.

Clean and set the point gap, check the timing and its off to the races!!

This is a cool Vespa PX150, originally purchased in Germany. It came in with a locked-up motor.

Well lets get her apart and see what's going on... 

Motor is out 

Aha! Someone installed the critical clutch side crank seal wrong-way out!!!
 The crankshaft rides against this seal and if it is backwards eventually the crank window will catch it and hell breaks loose... note the smaller pieces, one of these was jammed in the rotary valve which stopped the crank so fast it spun out of round , the other chunk went through the cylinder, destroying the assembly :(

New seal in place.

New crankshaft and bearings, looking real clean inside!!

oooh shiny...

Might as well install a big bore kit since the original cylinder and piston were trashed.

Now lets get that rebuilt motor back in the chassis!

Time to ride out in style...

In the garage

Which one would you wanna ride?