knew a lot more about mopeds than I do!
A few of the forum members have been patiently advising me in in the proper methods of squeezing the last few ounces of umph from the 1978 Puch Maxi that a Christian brother gave me last summer.
With the exception of the Indian and Derbi mopeds I sold in my shop in the early 80s (and they weren't really personal bikes) the Puch is the least (by far) horsepower bike I have owned in that 55+ years.
It's being brought to my attention that to achieve optimum performance from these small engines they need to be more finely tuned than any of the scores of motorcycles I've had in the last 55+ years.
It seems there is far more complexity to them than an uneducated person would at first glance think.
I'm making headway (I think).
Carb number as well as exhaust number indicate that the Maxi was originally the 1.5 HP model.
However, someone in its history did some upgrades / mods to it for it easily ran 31 MPH (GPS) when I got it started and running for the first time in 21+ years.
A number of the MA helpers suggested that the head gasket should be removed to get a tad more compression.
As I said in the topic header the last guy to work on it knew far more about Puch mopeds than I do (and probably ever will) for when I took the head off this afternoon the head gasket had already been removed.
There was one area that looked as if there may have been a possible leak.
While it was off I decided to clean up the combustion chamber a little and clean up the mating surface by using #400 & then #600 wet or dry on the surface plate using Kroil as the medium.
After getting a decent looking mating surface a dip in the parts cleaner and it was ready to put back on, after carefully cleaning the top of the cylinder of course.
It may not make much (if any) difference but I at least know the status of the head and cylinder top now.
Thanks again to all the advisors.
Cheers
James