Long Beach Knuckleheads

Elena and Bryan. we all went out for drinks for the fuck of it. Saw James, haven't seen that dood since the accident.  He's already expressing interest in riding again.

 KnuckleHeads new goal is trying to get  Elena's bike blast fast. It's getting the a35 treatment.  good reeds, good pipe 50mph. We ditched the sach's 60 Austisa. it was terrible

Bryan and I finally got his Simonini on his bike. Fabbed up and bracketed. 28x22 gearing, ported Alukit, 4 petal malosssi. 320 Sebacs.  2.75 rear wheel. 55mph+  its all over. and Bryan is a big boy

some pics of whats up. Some other pics of whats goin down soon

no funds

underemployment, no monies for a big boy carb rite now. im gonna make the Cobromos build a mild mannered one til i can discover a way to make money grow on trees. For now gotta make due with the little guy 14SHA.

had these two pedal reeds laying around from a previous project. pretty good reeds

busted out the Dremel today. had to remove a lot of material from the manifold so it could flow smoothly

 smoothed out the transitions a bit.  square peg in a round hole kinda thing, ya know? nothing impressive. Still got to finish her up a bit

Awww well. im tired. thats it for now. Tomorrow, some cylinder work

turbocharged

After months of broken car and under employment, I was finally able to save up enough extra scratch to pick up my rebuilt turbo from TurboCity in Anaheim. YAY! seriously the best place ever!!! Geary was great. when i walked in the shop, he already knew my turbo was from an mr2!  wayyyy knowledgable and super trustworthy.  This was the ORIGINAL TURBO!!! and lasted 290,000 miles! HA! hopefully this one will last at least half as long. He upgraded the turbo seals to "dynamic" seals which are supposed to seal better? i dunno.But really did do a super high quality job.well the good ol' CT-26 got cleaned up, ceramic coated, intake/exhaust compressor wheels put back to spec and all the seals and internal o-rings replaced.

 

dual entry!

Sweeeeeet. little turboToyota is ALMOST back on the road.  my brother will be uberglad im not askin for his car anymore. more to come sooon.

Complication Minor

Moped under construction

Just picked up a sweet Polini 4-petal and 19mm manifold from Woolly Bully Christopher. It was off from a LateBirdy race bike that was sold to Chris and then consequently blown and parted out and sold to me.  I initially thought the manifold was made by Shaw but turns out that it was a Choke especial. It sealed well anyways.  All of the electrical wiring on this Tomos ST was on the left side..  the wiring is kinda messy and looking to clean it up as soon as possible. Some off the holes were threaded in the frame from the factory, which made it a little bit easier to wire up.

 

The 19mm intake manifold is pretty sweet. The intake fits perfectly under the Tomos frame, which seems to be the problem with putting on a 4 petal onto a Tomos.  Another problem I ran into was that on a A55 frame, the petcock is on the left side and gets in the way with the reed cage on the Polini. If i was running the Malossi 4-petal, this wouldnt be a problem i think. But if I was runnin the Malossi, I would've had made a different manifold which would have been more time consuming and costly.

Also, the stock carb position is on the right side, which makes putting on a PHBG kind of difficult to adjust, as the controls on the PHBG is on the left. With the new manifold, it shoots the carb on the opposite side of stock Tomos but on the correct side of the controls. Its a good compromise.

For now this seems to be the solution. Running a straight fuel line to the filter then the carb. Im planning on getting an inline fuel valve soon. having no petcock kinda sucks

As soon as I was done, i took the little black Tomos for a ride.  I gained more lowend from my  previous setup and top screams like a banshee. Feels good all around but i think im jetted a little lean on top i think. I had this weird low end bogging from being too rich and having a crappy manifold with the 2 petal. But alll of that is gone now. The ST idles perfectly, revs smoothly and has no airleaks! sweeeeeet. I suspected the crappy 2 petal manifold, although a healthy 21mm, to be air leaky and unreliable.  I guess I was right because as soon as I put that shitty manifold on, I lost alot of low end. Especially compared to Knucklehead Zachs bike, which was almost the same exact set-up except a bitchen 2 petal 19mm manifold made by Shaw. Zachs bike had so much torque that it would pull wheelies in first and second gear.

So now that I have my torque back with a good intake, its blast mode. tootaloooooo

Sunday Summers

 

Fractured clavicle! its kept me outta the moped thing for what seems to be forever! I just missed everything. I missed my moped. i missed my friends! But now im a bit more healed. Let the good times roll. Everything for the past 2 years now have been basically related to these loud smelly smokey silly little machine thingys.

 

I guess a couple updates first. This was last Sunday. On the way to LA to ride with Woooollly Bulllies! and Tigers! 2pm Met up at Knucklehead Erics house in a pretty rough area of Norwalk. Tightened some bolts, turned some screws, squirted some gas, gapped some plugs, adjusted  knick knacks, the usual, ya know?  In the process of all of this, found out that my bearing spacers in the rear wheel were shot. This is like the THIRD time this has happened. 1st time, bought the wheel from Myrons with no spacer. wrecked my bearings. 2nd time, the spacer that was put in was of inadequate length, wrecked my bearings. This time, the shims that Marvin had welded to the spacer had ground down considerably, causing this wierd squeaking noise ive long suspected to be the bearings. So Ive wrecked another pair of bearings. Hmmmm makes me think how well the front wheel is shimmed.

Well, Knucklehead Eric being the super genius that he is, bored out an old washer to shim the bearing properly, and it fucking worked like a charm. for the time being any way. I guess we're just gonna go to Ace Hardware and get some nice hardened steel tubing and cut the correct spacer length because it seems like nobody can get the damn wheel right. Mopeds always broken but they're easy to fix!! Off to meet Rad Robert, who also conveniently lives in Norwalk. Met up with Robertooooo then it was a fucking blast all the way down Beverly St to Woolly Bully BBQ tunnels and bridges ride. soo rad

looky all the mopeds! Woolly Bully meet.Such a good showing. Soo many people have gotten all kinds of fast since last

 

 The many many faces I havent seen is soo long! BBQ time. Jerked chicken, rice and beans, pico watermelon......mmmmmmm yummy

Fellow KnuckleHead Eric!!!! my good buddy, expert mechanic, new daddy! Yay for Eric! baby boy Wesley.  He is really knowledgable about small motorini, and is the king of backyard ingenuity. Plus he will build the cleanest bikes around. Eric has the touch of knack. Somehow he inherited a Black Widow  Pinto Swinger with a 80 metra e50 super motor built by Shaw.  He's recently turned and tuned that creation into one of the cleanest Pintos ive seen. When we go ride he just plays with me, sandbaggin his throttle for sure. 80 Metra is seriously boss. 60mph+

damn. soo clean

This is Knucklehead Erics next monster creation. 84 Cobra. oh man. soo jealous of this one. Its gonna get the whole Tomos treatment. A35 bottom, alukitty, reeds and manifold. Gonna be a good reliable blassster. Much thanks to Woolly Bully Maxwell! he is soo rad.

Night ride. Petrol fill. The good dudes. true passion. Mike Matt and Robert.

Kiyoko burned a headlamp. quickie bulb change to no avail. i think its a grounding problem. Taped on Flashlight = good enough to not get a ticket! sweet

Off to Stinkers. Tigre Lauren Djs the bar.

Robert broke his rear axle on the way to Stinkers. We chilled a little bit at the bar, deciding what we should do. The only logical choice was to ride to doubles on my Tomos all the way back to Norwalk. that was a rad experience.  The whole way we were blasting at least 50mph+ according to Eric. Doubles at 50+. soo cool. Me and Robert combined probably weigh 250 pounds. maybe thats why. Made it home safely. definitely was beat. This was the first long ride since the LateBirdies Flock yeah II, in account of my collarbone and all that jazz.  I heart Woolly Bullies and LA Tigers.

Look out. Some serious builds comin in the future from the Knuckleheads and the Bullies.