Post by ratdog on Sept 5, 2018 9:49:11 GMT -5
Farewell to Red bike.
Because it been spread over several threads, this is the story of red bike in one place.
This started with a person I fish with coming to me with his (blue bike) 50cc scoot and asking if I could do a BBK for him. Ed and I each have Bass boats. He has a Stratos , with a 250 horse Johnson, I have a Ranger with a 250 horse Mercury. We both live alone, so it was more fun to fish together in one boat. Ed knows of my engine building experience, so he asked me to do it for him.
About the same time, I bought Red Bike (Ice Bear Falcon) for my adult nephew. Well Stupid (my Nephew) laid the bike down about 45 secs after he first got on it. So I did some minor repairs and got him back on the road, After about two weeks, Stupid lost his key. Instead of calling me to get the spare, or looking in the 600 sq feet of house that he uses, he decided to tear apart the scoot to try to hot wire it. He broke a bunch of plastic, ripped out some wiring, and cut the wires going to the ignition switch so he could twist wires together that he had no idea what they did. He quickly blew a fuse, so because he dint have a replacement fuse, he wrapped alum foil around the fuse and kept twisting together wires. At any rate, the next time I visited, the bike was a wreck. So I bought the wreck from him for $50. My son and I started fixing the bike up, but the piss pore 32 mph speed it gave us was just too low for my liking. Besides it would be fun to tweak something that the parts are so cheap for. I won't rehash all the things we did to it, but I do have 3 cylinders, 4 pistons, three heads, 5 cam shafts, and 3 carbs sitting on the bench in the garage. Anyway I had my fun with it so I agreed to sell it back to Stupid for $250 at $50/mo
now I have to be honest, I was not real confident about the 37 mile run down there to drop it off. This bike is running a lot of compression (around 180psi) and, of course, generates a lot of heat. With it being in the 90s outside...
We take the back roads to his house which is a very long (29 mile) stretch of two lane black top thru mostly farm country. There is actually only 2 stoplights and one stop sign in the whole 37 miles. So my son took off trying to keep the rpms between 8000 and 8200 which means 45 to 50 mph range. The bike almost made it the whole way. Seems the gas gauge started working correctly about 25 miles into the trip and he suddenly realized he had no gas. There was a farmer out mowing his lawn and we stopped. He put about a ¼ gal in to bike to make it all the way.
Once there, we pulled the plug to see all was well. Changed the oil (no silver sparkles in the drain oil) and did a general tightening of bolts and stuff. I went up to the gas station and got some 103 octane fuel and filled it up. SO Red Bike is gone! Well at least for now. I have no doubt Stupid will run it out of gas and put regular in it. Then no doubt he would notice the pinging until the engine melts down. Or maybe he will just loose his key again...
Because it been spread over several threads, this is the story of red bike in one place.
This started with a person I fish with coming to me with his (blue bike) 50cc scoot and asking if I could do a BBK for him. Ed and I each have Bass boats. He has a Stratos , with a 250 horse Johnson, I have a Ranger with a 250 horse Mercury. We both live alone, so it was more fun to fish together in one boat. Ed knows of my engine building experience, so he asked me to do it for him.
About the same time, I bought Red Bike (Ice Bear Falcon) for my adult nephew. Well Stupid (my Nephew) laid the bike down about 45 secs after he first got on it. So I did some minor repairs and got him back on the road, After about two weeks, Stupid lost his key. Instead of calling me to get the spare, or looking in the 600 sq feet of house that he uses, he decided to tear apart the scoot to try to hot wire it. He broke a bunch of plastic, ripped out some wiring, and cut the wires going to the ignition switch so he could twist wires together that he had no idea what they did. He quickly blew a fuse, so because he dint have a replacement fuse, he wrapped alum foil around the fuse and kept twisting together wires. At any rate, the next time I visited, the bike was a wreck. So I bought the wreck from him for $50. My son and I started fixing the bike up, but the piss pore 32 mph speed it gave us was just too low for my liking. Besides it would be fun to tweak something that the parts are so cheap for. I won't rehash all the things we did to it, but I do have 3 cylinders, 4 pistons, three heads, 5 cam shafts, and 3 carbs sitting on the bench in the garage. Anyway I had my fun with it so I agreed to sell it back to Stupid for $250 at $50/mo
now I have to be honest, I was not real confident about the 37 mile run down there to drop it off. This bike is running a lot of compression (around 180psi) and, of course, generates a lot of heat. With it being in the 90s outside...
We take the back roads to his house which is a very long (29 mile) stretch of two lane black top thru mostly farm country. There is actually only 2 stoplights and one stop sign in the whole 37 miles. So my son took off trying to keep the rpms between 8000 and 8200 which means 45 to 50 mph range. The bike almost made it the whole way. Seems the gas gauge started working correctly about 25 miles into the trip and he suddenly realized he had no gas. There was a farmer out mowing his lawn and we stopped. He put about a ¼ gal in to bike to make it all the way.
Once there, we pulled the plug to see all was well. Changed the oil (no silver sparkles in the drain oil) and did a general tightening of bolts and stuff. I went up to the gas station and got some 103 octane fuel and filled it up. SO Red Bike is gone! Well at least for now. I have no doubt Stupid will run it out of gas and put regular in it. Then no doubt he would notice the pinging until the engine melts down. Or maybe he will just loose his key again...
