MOPED ARMY

Rad. Nice little MB5 hardwiring cheatsheet.

This literally could not be more timely. I am sitting here, playing hooky from work, WAITING for the treats Ice Cream Truck to deliver my Trail Tech voltage regulator. I've been blowing headlight bulbs. Not tail, just headlight, figure the VR should fix it but I was wondering how I was gonna tackle the wiring. This should really help a lot!

MB5's are the new Hobbit! Yay!

Since we are posting pics and build details, attached find my MB5, with fresh rubber from treats, the Sava MC7. I recommend anyone else shopping for these tires go one size smaller than I did out back, (I have the 3.5 crammed in there) and get the 3.25 casing or even stick with the 3.0's they will still look huge.

Setup details:

-70cc Kit of some kind (came on bike)

-21 PHBG 101 Main

-Proma Circuit Pipe

-16-43 Gearing (Stock seems to be 13-43)

-4 petal reed block of some kind (looked but didn't pull it out, looks like a Gila block)

The bike seems to wind out at over 60mph, I've GPS'd it at 60.2 recently. 5th can be a chore to get on top of, but when you do, lookout! I can't take any credit for the tuning of the setup, this is how the bike came to me, other than the handlebars and the tires. Whoever put it together actually did a good job. No leaks, idles well, starts first kick, and seems to be going faster than most.. I weigh about 170lbs, btw. Now with a trail tech voltage regulator, hopefully I'll finally stop blowing bulbs and have myself a fun do anything bike.

You are like some kind of moped psychic, Naz... FYI I'm already up and getting ready to electrocute myself.

my mb5 won't stop blowing taillight or headlight bulbs, but brakelight works fine. i have a regulator wired up, but i think it's on the yellow wire only...also, you guys running batteries or no? i also heard that if the dash lights are blown out, your other lights will want to blow, too. is this true?

i have one of these hooked up in place of the battery, but not sure if it actually works because none of my lights work...hah

I would imagine you can run whatever you want in the fork, brand wise, but stick to something like 5wt or 7.5 wt (blend 5 and 10wt together 50/50 to achieve ~7.5wt) for most everyday applications. As for volume, I'm not sure how many cc's our forks call for but it would be good to get that figure from anyone who has it. In lieu of a hard # on oil volume, go with something like 20-30mm from the top of the fork with the legs compressed (if you don't compress the legs when filling you'll massively overfill and blow tons of oil out the top if you lower it back down before sealing. If you do seal it with all that extra oil then you're blowing seals and oil everywhere within the first mile going down the road) and see how that feels. Still bottoms? add a few more cc's until that goes away. Too harsh? Feels over firm or unresponsive? Lower a LITTLE by removing extra oil with a clear syringe and hose. I like motul fork oil and if you buy it at motorcycle shops you'll save $$. Bicycle shops that carry forl oil have small containers marked up like crazy, so stick with moto shops for this kind of thing.

I have a question though guys- what oil are you all running for the transmission? Normal Manual transmission fluid? Motor oil? Gear Oil? Oddly, although apparently I think I can rebuild forks, I don't know dick squiggly about trannys.

Good info there thanks Tom! Time for a crankcase oil change I think.

Regarding the different weights of fork oil- the numbers represent viscosity, or "thickness" of the oil. (ignore fork adjustments or inherent valving characteristics for a moment and focus on the oil itself) 5wt is fairly light and will provide for a smooth, active and fast moving suspension. Some will feel like their forks are "too bouncy" though with 5wt oil esp in forks without sophisticated, or at least effective rebound damping. 10wt is roughly twice as thick and will significantly slow down the compression and rebounding of your fork legs. This will be especially noticeable over high frequency inputs, like washboard bumps in a road, (high frequency impacts = fast, rapid, repeated hits on the fork, often small.) the fork will have more of a tendency to "pack up", or dive and settle- with heavier weight fork oil, but generally provide a very stable feeling ride and less noticeable brake dive etc due to the slower characteristics of the heavier weight oil. Riders who live in hot climates will routinely run 10wt oil however, as in regions like the Southwest, etc the viscosity of the oil goes down significantly as it is usually quite a bit warmer to begin with and naturally all oils weights and behaviors are very vulnerable to temperature and will ride different during different seasons or times of day, and at the beginning of a ride vs well into a ride when things have had a chance to warm up, or early in the freezing ass mornings before the sun gets to doing something about things. You can easily imagine that lighter weight fork oils etc are also popular in colder climates, as thicker oils only get more syrupy and sluggish feeling when you live or ride in cold conditions. Folks who don't know about these differences may be missing an easy opportunity to improve their bike's handling characteristics by simply servicing their suspension and choosing a custom oil weight blend that suits their riding style and climate range. Harder to do with rear shocks, of course- all we can do with most of those is choose an appropriate spring rate for our weights and tune around the front end, with a supporting eye on tire pressure (Yet another factor in suspension tuning) for the best handling package all around..

just got my homoet 70cc yesterday. what measurements you need?

I also just got my 8 petal reeds and mounting adapter ... these holes are definitely going to need to be opened up... not the end of the world, but for $120 you would hope the hand filing would be nonexistent...

OOOHH and I'm planning on reusing my original cylinder studs, reed block studs, and exhaust studs.... anyone know of any foreseeable problems with doing that? (edited)

Josh we need to get together and play MB's soon!

@Josh- please get those Reeds in there (snap a couple pics first!) and report back on how things go.

@Tom- I'd love to see that fork on the bike, have you got pics up anywhere? I didn't think the CRF50 forks would be long enough or stiff enough, but you sound like you're really happy with them.

@Steve,

Sorry, kind of a confusing post. CRF50 forks are on my rigid freespirit. I'll go ahead and meassure my spare set though and see if they'll mount up to an mb5 and how much of a difference it will be.

...or later tonight will!! I couldn't stop thinking about the bike...So I tore back into the carb again... I don't know how it didn't fall out the first time, but the needle clip was bent wide, and had allowed the needle to slide... or not slide...Sure as shit, a little gas in her and I got her back to life... The roommates parents are staying with us from Germany for the next week, or I wouldn't have gave a shit and really fired her up... but now I can sleep soundly.... After some debater I think I'm going to wait to put all the goodies on her til after she's all inspected and registered... Thats the first thing to do on Monday... If all goes well later today... Now just to get the baretta back and blasting, but that's for another thread~~~ :-)

Just scored this beauty... And it's just as well, my current tank is hosed... Now I just need to find tank decals... But at least she's running~