Stretching my 2003 Zuma 50cc 2t

[sinfull]

A small skid plate for the exhaust would probably help, at least provide a little protection. Or mount titanium skid blocks in front of it and show off the sparks when you hit something 🤔 😉

The seat looks good, nice clean color, can go with alot of colors

[furiousbob]

Yeah I was thinking either a skid plate or raise the angle of the motor a bit. But I only have about 1/2" before it hits the plastic tub.

[jbjhillbilly]

Kydex is so versatile. I use it for tons of projects, and it has absolutely changed how people make holsters and knife sheathes.

Heat guns and gloves keep your options open for longer than 1 minute.

Project is looking awesome. Super cool to watch it all coming together!

[furiousbob]

Quick question. Is the oil sending unit necessary if I no longer have my dash? Mine started leaking after I removed the tank to coat the underside of it. If it's not necessary, I may just pull the sender and plug her up.

**Edit - I ended up grabbing some old Hondabond and sealed her up.  Let's see if it'll hold.

[furiousbob]

It seems like the last 20% of a project always takes 80% of the time.

I ended up remaking the vertical arms to be about .75" shorter.  This raises the exhaust off the ground a smidge so I won't destroy my exhaust when I hit an unsuspecting speed bump.  It's now TIGHT under there.  Carb adapter touches the tub and the carb has about 0.5" before it hits the fuel tank.

I powdercoated the rear fender. It came out terrible. Not sure what happened with the gloss black. I probably sprayed too heavy, to be honest. And on top of that, the fender was 1 whole inch too far to the left when mounted. Not sure how I goofed that up.



I ordered some SEM trim black in gloss black.

Disheartened, I went to work on my Ford Expedition for the weekend where I learned another valuable lesson.

Long story short. CEL, vacuum leak somewhere, turns out intake manifold, figured I'd do the valve cover gaskets and injectors at the same time, discovered some handiwork by the previous guy that was in there (me) and he didn't use a torque wrench which caused serious damage to the manifold's aluminum insert mounting holes. Rant over. USE A TORQUE WRENCH



Anyway. Fixed the oil leak on the oil tank with the Hondabond.



No more leaks!



Started piecing the scoot back together. I don't know if I ever mentioned this but about a year ago I decided to axe the ugly turn signals. Turns out, there's room beside the brake light housing for turn signals. You just have to get creative and do some drilling/trimming and glue it all in.





Re-welded, scuffed and painted the rear fender





Not 100% pleased with this SEM trim stuff in gloss black. I may re-do it later.

But now the big question. The front fender. So I tried giving the factory fender the SEM treatment but it's so scuffed and marred from years of neglect. It doesn't look that great. I really really wanna use the Aerox fender but I'm still unsure about how to make a bracket for it. This will probably take me a minute to figure out. Here are some comparison photos.





And here's a rear shot for poops and giggles



Also, the underbelly still needs to go on. It's drying from paint right now. And I also have to make a license frame relocator, trim the front brake adapter and make a speed sensor holder. Also, I'm probably going to swap the handlebars. Probably flats. I hate how these risers look.

I'm also thinking about nickel plating the rear rack and the CVT cover.  Or I may just leave the rack off entirely.  Not sure right now.

[jbjhillbilly]

That is looking sharp! The tail
Light looks great too.

I’m terrified for your exhaust though!

[geoffh]

Congrats on the build so far,I am envious of your garage and your skills I had look on eBay USA typing in Zuma seat cover comes up with just a few options but one does appear to be a custom cover which staples on like the OE I got a similar one for my jog it just looks better than the one size fits all,not that your seat cover is bad but it,s all I have to help your build .

Geoff

[furiousbob]

Nov 7, 2022 15:32:01 GMT -5 geoffh said:

Congrats on the build so far,I am envious of your garage and your skills I had look on eBay USA typing in Zuma seat cover comes up with just a few options but one does appear to be a custom cover which staples on like the OE I got a similar one for my jog it just looks better than the one size fits all,not that your seat cover is bad but it,s all I have to help your build .

Geoff

Actually, the cover itself is really well made.  It's hand stitched, IIRC.  I was a smidge disappointed that it wasn't a whole new seat cover and it was just a stretch-over but that might prove to be an advantage once I get my greasy pants all over it.


Ultimately, it's the color I was on the fence about.  It's slowly growing on me, though.  One of my first cars was a black-and-tan Miata.  I loved that thing to death.  This Zuma is a nod to that car.  Slow as heck but fun to drive/ride!

Here she is in all her glory.  I wish I never got rid of it.  That thing would be worth at least $20k today.  Sigh

[bigmatthew86]

Miata’s are awesome. I had an 03 with BRP m62 intercooled super charger & it got down. I wish I wouldn’t have sold it too!

[furiousbob]

Okay not much of an update. I've been inundated with car repairs, fabrication jobs, broken tools waiting for parts, laziness and daylight savings pushing beer o-clock back an hour.

In any case, I ordered some clamps from AliExpress that I could modify to mount the Aerox fender. It's not showing up until early December so I decided to just make my own.



Not my best work but it works. Not sure if I'm going to powdercoat it, plate it or paint it.



The brackets still need some polishing, cutting and grinding. I'm going to remake my caliper adapter bracket to support my speed sensor after I realized the magnet doesn't have to be on the rim. You can stick it anywhere on the wheel or brake rotor. I don't know why that never occurred to me.

Also, I got a Yasuni silencer in brushed aluminum. It's meant for the Yasuni Z but it looks pretty much the same inside and out as my Yasuni R silencer. Slapped her on.



Also made a plate relocater. Basically bent a 1.5" x 0.125" flat bar lengthwise. I'm not sure I like it. It looks ugly. I may opt for my first choice which was to mount the plate off the CVT cover. I did notice that I could tuck my plate half way in to my wheel's rim haha. Stupid and will certainly get me pulled over.

Anyway that's it for now. Thanksgiving is right around the corner so I'll probably be wrapping this one up over the holiday weekend. Not much else to do.

I put the "skidplate" plastic shield thingy back on, zip tied some brake/throttle cables and the only part I'm still waiting on is a NCY flat handlebar in chrome. I'm going to wait on chrome-ing the CVT cover and I decided to leave the cargo rack off for a cleaner look.

[Lucass2T]

Nice work.
Would be cool to see a zuma with an Aerox front end.

[furiousbob]

I am giving up on the Aerox fender. I've made 6-7 iterations of mounts. Machined new clamps for the forks. Tried spacing everything which way up and down left and right. I thought it was going to be simple but I spent maybe 2 weeks scratching my head over this. Every time I have a lightbulb go off in my head and make the parts, it ends up failing.

The issue is clearance. The fender has a protrusion at the top and unless you space the fender much further forward, the protrusion hits the fork tree upon full compression.

The old Zuma fender was beat to poop. I tried respraying it but it still looks like poop. I've ordered a new fender from scootertuning.ca

In other news, my NCY bars came in. I chopped ( probably too much ) 2" off each end.



Completely transforms the look of the scooter. This thing is now solidly "rad" in my book.

I also probably should look in to securing some titanium strips to the underbelly. The thing sits maybe 1.5" off the floor and less than 0.5" with the suspension compressed.



Other than that, I'm using the rest of today (Sunday) to remake my front brake caliper mounts to support the speedo sensor bung.

That's it for now, unfortunately. This is taking much longer than anticipated. I needa finish this project so I can start the 3.4L build for my Isuzu Trooper.

[furiousbob]

On another note, what's your guy's opinion on water cooled BBKs? Worth the time and effort?

[aeroxbud]

You definitely get better performance and more consistent cooling.
The problem is always where to fit the radiator on a bike not designed for them.
If you are going to do a lot of high speed of long distance riding it might make sense. But just cruising round the local area not so much.

[sinfull]

Love the progress, great work on the RH. 👍

Opinion on water cooling, if you want to add complexity and design the whole system then go ahead 😀