General Category > Bike Builds, Rebuilds And Restorations Only
1965 Benelli / Motobi 200 Sprite
Canuck750:
A bit more progress, I picked up all the parts from the painter on Tuesday except for the gas tank.
All is good except the side covers will need redoing, for some reason the painter applied the side cover decals off level (he had pictures of the museum bike in Pessaro)
this ignores me to no end!!!!
Paint is pretty good, I wish I had insisted on the pin stripes being hand painted, they were going to be masked and sprayed but they ended up being tape stripes with clear over, not the end of the world but I am picky. I can live with it, 99% of the world would think nothing of it, it will probably bother me to no end.
Canuck750:
Just waiting on the gas tank now, will attempt to fire it up this weekend
Canuck750:
I fired up the Egg today after stripping down the engine to replace a big double row ball bearing that jambed up last time I started the bike. It fired up on the first kick! Hurrah. Settled into a nice ideal, ran it for ten minutes then drained and replaced the break in oil.
I am waiting on the final paint and decals, won’t get the parts back until when I return from a vacation mid August.
Still working on figuring out the head light and tail light switch, Benelli indicated two types of lighting coil electrical, a single and double wire lighting coil and two types of headlight switch, a simple on/off type and a more complex headlight and taillight position and a taillight only position. The horn and battery are always live when the battery is connected and the Stator ignition coil deals with the spark. While the engine is running power is fed from the lighting coil to a rectifier and a separate regulator inside the headlight shell. So in effect there are three distinct circuits to the electrical system. Just to make it interesting my project bike came with the two wire lighting coil and the off/on switch, a miss match I believe, but I think I figured out the system today, just need to swap some wires around and try it again.
Fortunately I have the electrical diagram for both Stator options
The challenges of old Italian motorcycles keep coming.
Canuck750:
I have been away for the past two months but its back to the work bench to finish the Motobi in time for the Rocky Mountain Giro in Naksup B.C. this coming September 8 - 9 - 10.
My painter has finally finished with the gas tank and side panels and I have got the bike to start on one or two kicks and idle nicely.
The oil pump is still leaking from the underside despite drilling and tapping the engine cases for M5 inserts and installing stainless steel M5 studs, all with locktite. I need to seal the four bolts that secure the two halves of the pump body together, I am amazed how much oil can run through the M4 machine screws.
I made up some upper triple clamp to fork ear spacers, the rubber bits keep stretching and deforming so I turned up an polished stepped aluminum pieces.
The steering damper got sorted by using an Aermacchi Sprint damper rod and hand wheel, stock is a plastic hand wheel but I like the aluminum look.
I rewired the headlight bucket spaghetti junction, tore out the old selenium rectifier and coil regulator and rewired the light on - off switch.
Honda 6V reg/units would not work but a friend of mine who used to teach University electrical engineering circuit design found me a silicone rectifier that takes two alternator wires and delivers 6V DC, hurrah!! For the regulator he gave me a bundle of three resistors to run in line with the power to the battery, its great to have a guy look at this who knows what he is doing.
I bench shifted the running bike through the gears so I have my fingers crossed its going to be a smooth runner.
One fork leg is leaking out the bottom, I need to strip it and see what is up with the O ring base seal.
cliffrod:
Great to see new pics and hear good news about your bike, Jim. It looks really great. Good luck with these last gremlins.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version