MOPED ARMY

i got a moby too and yer right, when it runs good it beats the lot but when it runs bad, its a worse then getting kicked in the balls. So i named her Pita. (Pain In The Ass)

nice ped larry!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Simon,

I owned the identical Motobecane that I own now (same orange color and came from the same Moped shop) back in '77. It gave me problems right out of the box. I was constantly bringing that bike back to the moped shop on a weekly basis. I remember replacing the muffler at least 3-4 times. I sold that bike and replaced it with a '78 Garelli.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that even right out of the box, many of these Motobecanes were problematic. I think a lot of them were simply lemons.

As far as your timing cam.....spray some solvent/penetrant all around that timing cam and lightly hit it with a ballpeen hammer from all angles. More than likely, it is stuck on their with rust. I even went as far as loosening the coils from the stator plate and letting them hang down so I could tap all around that cam. I then used a universal type cam puller to pull that hummer off. If you let the coils hang down, you'll also have more room to get a puller on it. Mine was so stubborn, I even contemplated using my Dremel to cut it off since I had two spares I could use. Luckily, it finally popped off before it came to that.

I would let that penetrant soak in overnight and try again tomorrow.

Larry

Too late for that, I ended up opting for the route of cutting it off. I somehow managed to strip the threads in the cam, making the puller nearly useless.

I tried my damnedest to get it off by taping from the back. The tapping turned to hitting, and hitting turned to using a punch, the punch became a chisel and before long I had my hack saw out to get that thing off. Not a very friendly system. Luckily I have a backup cam, but you definitely don't want to replace the it every time you take it off.

I had some other fun finding out about the Motobecane "hidden nuts" holding on the coils. I had no idea what was going on. I think tomorrow I'll take some photos of the process and parts to make a small article about it. Maybe it will help out people who need to take it apart for the first time (like it would of me if I had it today).

That's interesting that you know about Motobecane's back when you could buy them new. I guess they've always been finicky. I blame the French, but I'm still in love with my moped.

simon

Have kind of been looking for a moped and was given a complete but not running 1980 model 50V. Am going to try to get it running. Guess I will start by pruchasing a tech manual. This should be interesting! Oh well the price was right.