I'm a pretty big guy, weighing in at 183lbs and 5'10". My Puch Maxi is in GREAT shape and seems to run really well. The only gripe I have is that I can't seem to get it past 17mph on flat land. I replaced the Plug with one that was properly gapped. The tires are all inflated to rec. press. I'de like to see a little better performance, maybe up to 20-23mph. Is 17mph a little slow for a rider my weight, or does it seem right?
outboard that @!#$...it doesn't seem like you would be too big...i'm 6'4 and weigh 190...i've never had problems with puchs...i'm stumped except for the outboard thing.
Shane; the PUCH is a pretty darn good moped for handling heavyweights. I am an old fart (about 60) and no flyweight myself
(about 225 lbs.) but my PUCHs haul me around well. I have a '78 NEWPORT II, two(2) '78 SPORT MK II's, and a '80 J C
Penney SWINGER I, the II's have the two speed auto trans, the I has a single speed like I think your MAXI has. The NEWPORT
will carry me at 29-30 mph on flat ground, anytime, and that is what I expect from it. One of the SPORTS would do that until the
carb got screwed up (by me I think) and the other (I just bought two weeks ago and havn't messed with much yet) acts like it has a carb problem also. The single speed PUCH's have just as good a top speed as the two speed ones, just takes a little bit longer to get up to speed, especially with more weight aboard. One thing I found that will knock down the top end speed is a clogged muffler. Oil and carbon soot build up in the internal passages until the exhaust cannot get out effectively. It is a filthy, messy job, but easy! Look in the hole at the end of the muffler and you will see a nut (maybe 10mm or so), unscrew the nut and remove it and the washer and grab one of the "fins" of the thing you see recessed into the pipe and pull it out, I have found that leverlock plyers work best for this. It is a "lumpy" thing, about the size of a good, big Idaho baking potato with several holes in it. This is the element that does the sound muffling, just clean out the holes, making sure that you can see through across from hole to hole, and put it back in. If excessive exhaust back pressure was your problem, you should be in great shape, if the piston/rings/cylinder are badly worn or the carb is screwed up, that fix will have had little effect and you will need to look elsewhere ( and spend some bucks).
I have a 78 Puch Newport. I can get up to 35-40 mph on flat land with no mods to the engine or exhaust. I am 5' 11'' 185. There has to be something wrong with your ped. It should go faster.
Ok... I pulled the exhaust system apart. It was pretty clean, as the previous owner knew much about the bike and cleaned it often. The Engine shouldn't be too worn, as it only has 770 miles on it. I'm running a 20:1 mix with 87 Octane and standard 2 Cycle Penzoil. Any recommendation on tuning the carb, different mixtures, ect?
Shane, well, in cleaning the exhaust system, you have tried the quick and easy fix and it sounds like you might have the same kind of performance problem I have with two of my PUCH's (so far the NEWPORT continues to work really well), the kind of problem that has driven me to surf the web looking for answers. Tell me, does your PUCH take off good, pulling strongly, sounding good, then suddenly it "falls into a hole", accelleration ceases, there is a distinct change in the sound of the exhaust, it is like you hit a speed wall? You can back off the throttle and slow down, then get back on it and it will sound great and pull good until it hits that speed again and again and never go faster. I think it is a carburetor mixture problem but I am not absolutely sure if the mixture is going too rich (too much fuel for the air going in the engine) or too lean (not enough fuel---). I have made some tests with both of my troubled PUCH's, shutting off the fuel feed while at the "wall" speed and letting the engine use up the fuel in the float bowl, my thinking was that, if it were too rich, at the last moment before the fuen in the bowl was exhausted, the mixture would lean out and be correct for a moment and the engine would temporarily perform better. That has not been the case with either of them, so I suspect that the mixture might be too lean. I have kind of ignored the possibility of an ignition problem, because I too have replaced the spark plug with a new one with no effect, however, it is remotly possible that something in the breaker point gap width or base engine spark timing may be wrong and causing the problem. I sure hope that someone on the net that has has this kind of problem and has sucessfully cured it posts a message !!!
Could be you are starved for combustion air. Remove the air filter and take off the inlet pipe to the filter. Replace the filter and try it.
Ken
I weight 160 and my puch gets up to about 25-30 mph......there is prob something wrong with it!!!!!!!1
i have the same problem with my 78 batavus it gets up to 20 strong and stops accelerating
I'm going to tell you something that will be true till the day you die.............The NUMBER ONE reason for mopeds and motorcycles to run bad is a DIRTY CARBURETOR........you have to take it off and clean out the main jet and the pilot jet......... they are small brass pieces inside the carburetor float bowl that you take out with a screwdriver.......You hold them up to the light and look thru them to see a nice clean hole.......if its not clean you have to clean it out.... this is the first thing you try on any moped that is running bad........ I have fixed hundreds of motorcycles and mopeds .......it takes a knowledgable mechanic about 20 minutes to take apart clean and reassemble a carb.......so try it its not a big deal.....some carbs are hard to get to though, others are easy.
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I have 3 mopeds and 1 motorcycle, 7 carburettors in total and I have never ever had a dirty carburettor. If you use propper oil in the mix and have a GOOD feulfilter and airfilter there's NO WAY your carb can get dirty. If the carb's dirty you should replace those filters for new ones else it'll just get dirty again.
Lean or rich mixtures are a very common problem. Unscrew the sparkplug and look at it's color. If the plug's blackened the mix is too rich. If the plug is lightbrown and maybe even has molten electrodes the mix is too lean. If the mixture is correct the sparkplug should be about coffee-brownish (no milk). Place a larger main jet into rhe carb for a richer mix or a smaller one for a leaner mix. The size of the jet is stamped into it but not alway readable. The only way to find the right jet is too look at the color of the sparkplug and TRY a larger/smaller jet, drive a bit and look at the plug again to see if there's any improvement and try and try again.
If you have an ignitionproblem the first thing people do is replacing the plug. Although you do have to replace the plug every now and then (I do it every 2000 miles for my mopeds) but on the older mopeds the problem is the capacitator. The capacitator wears out over the years and will store less and less electricity making the spark weaker and weaker. Replace the capacitor if it's older then 10 years.
A dirty exhaust is not THAT big a problem, it will cost you some power, but not much. If you can, try to get your hands on a Leovinci racing exhaust, they're about 3 times more expensive then a standard exhaust, but they last longer then 3 standard exhausts AND allow you to go much faster.
...Ivo......I'm not talking about dirt from the ground......I'm talking about what happens when you put a bike away for the winter, or don't use it for a year or two....but you don't drain the float bowl (most people don't... even though we all should)..... Don't tell me you've never seen a pilot jet or main jet clogged with crud......What do you call that stuff if you don't call it "dirty"?..... Most of the mopeds these kids are asking about have been sitting for a couple of years without running at some time, and their carb jets get stuff plugging them up ...and then they won't run right......That's the number one reason for bad running!.... I have 2 mopeds and 17 motorcycles with about 38 carburetors.... And I know that if I pull one out that hasn't run in 2 years that I am going to have to CLEAN THE CARBURETOR JETS or it probably isn't going to run right... Now do you agree with that or not?
OK, so I cleaned the carb, again, and I am still not satisfied with the performance. Reading the posts deeper in the forum, there are references to determining the air/fuel mixture the engine is running at by spark plug examinaton and if I am doing it right, it indicates that I am running rich. Can running too rich cause the engine to operate as I have described in an earlier post? Years ago, I remember an outboard motor mechanic talk about a two stroke outboard motor running in "four-stroke" mode, ie. firing every other time. That is exactly what it sounds like both my PUCH's do when they hit that certain speed! Some additional background; on one of them, the mixture needle has had some corrosion on the side which was smoothed out with fine emery cloth, and the main jet may have been probed with a steel wire to dislodge dirt particles, both of which actions could upset the delicate calibration. The other one with the same problem does not show any such damage! I would be interested in trying some new parts, but at $6.95 a jet, I don't see me picking up a wide selection of jets of all sizes and to try each one in turn until I find the right one. Can anyone tell me what jet size the two speed PUCH's came with from the factory? Does any one know a less expensive parts source (like the two dollar jets mentioned in earlier posts) than $6.95 for a jet???
OK, so I cleaned the carb, again, and I am still not satisfied with the performance. Reading the posts deeper in the forum, there are references to determining the air/fuel mixture the engine is running at by spark plug examinaton and if I am doing it right, it indicates that I am running rich. Can running too rich cause the engine to operate as I have described in an earlier post? Years ago, I remember an outboard motor mechanic talk about a two stroke outboard motor running in "four-stroke" mode, ie. firing every other time. That is exactly what it sounds like both my PUCH's do when they hit that certain speed! Some additional background; on one of them, the mixture needle has had some corrosion on the side which was smoothed out with fine emery cloth, and the main jet may have been probed with a steel wire to dislodge dirt particles, both of which actions could upset the delicate calibration. The other one with the same problem does not show any such damage! I would be interested in trying some new parts, but at $6.95 a jet, I don't see me picking up a wide selection of jets of all sizes and to try each one in turn until I find the right one. Can anyone tell me what jet size the two speed PUCH's came with from the factory? Does any one know a less expensive parts source (like the two dollar jets mentioned in earlier posts) than $6.95 for a jet???
Sorry guys (and gals), the computer bit me again
I agree that the jets can clog up when you don't run the engine for a long time, I just never had one clogged up. In my experience the most common problem is a lean or overrich mixture. Maybe it's the oil in the mix, maybe you guys use a different kind of oil in the US.
The overrich mixture is the problem, when you reach higher revs the plug will get damped. If you're paying $7 for a jet you're being ripped off, a jet costs $2. If you can't get them cheaper then $7 you'll just have to go with it. If the mixture is too rich but the engine doesn't die out you'll probably need a jet about 2 or 4 sizes smaller maybe 6 but no more. I don't know what jetsize was in your ped when it came out of the factory, but that doesn't matter because two exactly similar bikes could need totally different jets. A friend of mine has 2 Kreidlers, both with the exact same carburettor, 70cc cilynder and piston and exhaust, the first one needs a 70 jet the other a 78. A Vespa Ciao has a 38 jet as standard but mine needs a 45 to run good. My Honda SS50 has a 68 jet for standard but after several adjustment it needed an 80.
I advise you to buy two jets, one 2 sizes and one 4 sizes smaller and try those.
i have a Puch myself and it had the same problem..i changed the oil in the clutch case..and decarbonized the cylinder and piston and put it all back togethere...i was still having the problem..and u know waht it was? the carb was suckin too much air..try putting tape or something over the air intake to reduce the ammount of air going in..then when the rev's get up there and u still feel like its not firing as good as it should..try more..then less tape i found that about have covered worked well for me.. also if ur carb. has a little needle that dangels down from the throttle try changing its position..if u move the needle down it means u get less gas..u move it up..more gas.
Changing the needle-height only changes the mixture at HALF-throttle it'll make no difference at full-throttle. If you tape off the airfilter/airintake the mixture COULD get better, but only if it was lean. The propper way to get the mixture right is to put the right size jet in the carb. If the mixture is lean you need a bigger jet, if the mixture is rich you need a smaller jet. The size of the jet is stamped into it. You can find out if the mix is lean or rich by looking at the color of the sparkplug. A rich mixture will blacken the plug and a lean mixture will color it lightbrown and might even melt the electrodes. The mixture is right when the plug is coffeebrownish (no milk).
Could it be that the float level is wrong, either through wear of the float needle valve/seat or inadvertant misadjustment of the float "tang" during disassembly/assembly? I have cleaned the hell out of mine, bur all the cleaning in the world cannot reduce the size of the main jet if it is too big ----- However, perhaps lowering the fuel level in the float chamber might lean it out?? SO; what is the manufacturers specification for the float level for a BING carduretor such as in the PUCH 50cc engine? Ivo, you really sound like you know what you are talking about, a voice of experience, got any thoughts on float level? Tony
1978 - Puch probably Still has Points and NOT the newer Electronic Ignition. So!, do You Know what that Means?
It Means that You have to get out the Dial Indicater, and a Degree Wheel and Set the Points and the Timing. But, You also need to Clean the Carb and Reset the Idle adjustment.
If by Chance, this Little guy has Electronic Ignition, then You'll Probably need a New Ignition Box, and which case I sugjest You look on the Box where the Spark Plug wire Comes from for a manufacture name and then look up the Company on the Web.
A lot of those were Universal and they used the Same unit on many Differant Brand Bikes. If it has a Coil with two small wires, Besides the Plug wire, then chances are you have the Points System, which means Referr to the top.
If you don't understand what I'm Talking about, then I sugest Finding the Tune Up Spec's, ( On the Web, or at the Library ) and Take it to a good bike shop where the mechanic has Used these tools before. I am a certified Motorcycle Tech/Engineer and I raced Motocross in the Early 1970's, and I own a
"1965 Sears Allstate, Puch Sabre 50", Old, But Quick!
Oh!, By the way I'm 6' 2" Tall and 220 Lbs., Your Not to Big.
You Just need a Liitle bit of Performance Tune Up, I suggest You Try the "UK" sites for Hi-Perfomance Carb, and or Exhaust, they have a Moped Racing Sight that can help, and the Exhaust, would be the first thing I would Change, They have these little Guys doing over 100 Mph over in Europe and Japan.
I knew a Guy here in the States that Built a "Honda QA 50" to do over 110 Mph, his biggest complant was the frame Flexing!!!
We had a "1962 Puch Moped" doing 55 Mph with a two speed trans. and a stock engine. It's all in the Tunning.
Good Luck!!!
SireRonald@Yahoo.comShane Wolfe wrote:
>
> I'm a pretty big guy, weighing in at 183lbs and 5'10". My Puch
> Maxi is in GREAT shape and seems to run really well. The only
> gripe I have is that I can't seem to get it past 17mph on flat
> land. I replaced the Plug with one that was properly gapped.
> The tires are all inflated to rec. press. I'de like to see a
> little better performance, maybe up to 20-23mph. Is 17mph a
> little slow for a rider my weight, or does it seem right?
Anthony,
Don't mess with the floater, it's designed to close the feultap in the carburettor when the feullevel has reached the jet. If the feullevel is too low the jet won't vapour any feul into the air and if the feullevel is too high the jet will just "drown" in feul and do nothing again.
If you have to change the size of the jet you have to screw it out and replace it for another jet with a different size. The size of the jet is stamped into it at the bottom. A new jet costs $2.
It must be your carb, I weigh 200 and my just broken in Solex pulls me at at least 22 mph, and Solex are supposed to be slow compared to other mopeds.
dude iv never heard of a 20:1 mixture on a moped mine is 50:1
hi i don't know what your on about with puchs, but i own a gilera h@k, a 50cc trail bike and im having the same problem with my carb, fine a low rpm but the minute i ask for power, it seems like its not pushing as much as it should, does this man i have to clean my carb and do something with the jets.
20:1...Geez. Try doing 43:1 (3OZ. 2 Stroke per gallon of gas). Look and see if your airbox is detached, or not there. I have experience with Puchs, and if you take the airbox off a stock one speed, it bogs really bad and doesn't accelerate. If that is it your set. If not; then clean your carb. Drane your tank, and refill it with the new mix too. If all of that doesn't work, check your compression.
20:1 is way to much oil. I think 50:1 is standard on Puchs. 40:1 should be used if it has been modified for power and speed. 20:1 is a lot of oil..
Shane,
20:1 is too much oil. 50:1 is what you should be running.
Do you have the 1hp, 1.5 hp or 2hp engine? With 20:1 oil you would be lucky to get 17mph with the 1hp engine!! They will only do around 20mph when they are running perfect!
But , you are not too big for any of the Puchs! I have one here right now that runs over 30 with me on it. 6`1" 195lbs.
Ike
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