My First "Real" Bike

Life Cars & Motorcycles
1

After two+ years on the island I have just completed all the paper work for my first motorcycle and YA it feels good. Been awhile since I used a clutch but things are coming back nicely.

It’s just a Kymco 150 CC but it has some balls. And it has the extended forks, but not chopper style. It also has a nice sissy-bar back rest for the passenger. Nice big seat. I should post some pics soon, if for nothing else, then for “before and after” value. I’m planning big things for this bike because I still have my scooter for work.

Previous owner is an enthusiast and took good care of it. Everything passed at the mechanic and I’m on my way. However, I must replace some parts because said previous owner was not into aesthetics.

The one thing I can’t understand is why he left the whiny sounding muffler on there, which is rusting to beat the band. It makes the bike sound like it’s always revving a tad too high during shifts at low speed. Anyway, can anyone get me started here and recommend a good, throaty sounding muffler that won’t set me back an arm and a leg. I just bought a new muffler for my Jockey 125 and even that was 900 so I’m thinking a decent muffler for my 'cycle will be anywhere from 1500-2,000?

Cheers

2

congrats :bravo:

is it a zing? or a hipster?

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The muffler for my 125cc scooter cost me 9000nt.

My buddy had a Kymco cruiser…he put straight pipes on it…it sounded awesome. Honest to god, it sounded like a Harley.

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I don’t want to spend anymore than about 3000 for a muffler. I know it sounds cheap but I’m also painting my tank and fenders.

So Mordeth, how much would straight pipes cost and how do I say that in Mandarin? Actually, never mind the translation. I’ll ask my gal. I would like to know the price though. :slight_smile:

And x08…what is a zing and what is a hipster? Mine doesn’t look like the small, compact Yamaha style. It’s got more of a Honda 750 profile with a long, two level seat and sissy bar. The clearance over the front tire is quite substantial, almost an enduro style.

Sound like a hipster? :s

5

like this??? this is a ZING

and this is a HIPSTER… i used to ride one…

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Ahh, i envy you. I miss my bike so much. Post pics when you can…

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I’m beginning to think I’m a complete nutter! I’ve spent about NT$ 13 000 in the last 2 months fixing up my little 50cc Dio that I bought second hand for NT$ 8000.

Bikes are like animals though…once you get attached… :loco:

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[quote=“Battery9”]I’m beginning to think I’m a complete nutter! I’ve spent about NT$ 13 000 in the last 2 months fixing up my little 50cc Dio that I bought second hand for NT$ 8000.

Bikes are like animals though…once you get attached… :loco:[/quote]

You mentioned once before that you spent 5,000 on the engine. I’ve had several 50cc scooters before. And I have one now where teh engine need a COMPLETE rebuild. And it will cost around 4,000. But in the past whenever I need to rebuild an engine for a 50cc it costs about 1,000nt for a new piston.

Remember whenever you get work done have him give you the old parts that he has replaced. You could then take one of those parts to another mechanic (preferably on foot) and ask how much it costs.

Mechanics lie to girls more than men…and they lie to foreigners more than locals. And they lie to locals…quite a bit. Be careful.

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Hiyall

I posted on this earlier but either no one knows or it

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Yeah! Save the seals. Damn Canadians!

But anyway, why do you want to know? Changing the fork oil is a pain, plus you’re left with the used oil to dispose of. Why not just get it changed at the shop?

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[quote=“Ducked”]Hiyall

I posted on this earlier but either no one knows or it

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[quote=“redwagon”]Kymco doesn’t give any figures for the fork oil volume because there are no parts available for them. No seals, no tubes. When they leak you replace them complete…

Replacing the seals is pointless if the tubes are pitted, since they will just chew through the new seals. Kymco doesn’t sell the seals but I had sourced seals from an industrial supplier before. They’re a common size for hydraulic rams IIRC. It doesn’t help you if your tubes are pitted however.
[/quote]

Thanks very much for this and your other info. Useful but irritating.

So they’ve made one of the commonest failure points on a motorcycle, virtually DESIGNED TO FAIL in the abscence of fork gaiters, a non-replacable item?

Hangings too good for them.

I take the point however that it won’t matter if the forks are pitted, since I’ll eventually have to replace the whole thing anyway. On mine it feels as if the corrosion is in peaks (which I thought fine wetNdry might get rid of) rather than pits (which, if they ARE there I thought, with less confidence, might be fillable with epoxy). I hav’nt looked under magnification yet though.

I’ve read somewhere people use ATF in forks but I’d guess its pretty low viscosity and will leak faster.

Interesting that the seals might be available as a non-automative part. I remember “scamming” some quite expensive Triumph 1300 gearbox bearings in Leeds by going to a bearing supplier with a fictitious non-automative application scenario (mumble, mumble…algal filtration…sludge tank impeller shaft maintenance… Weir Pumps…och aye the noo, Jimmy). Bearings have an identifying code which helps with this sort of thing.

Was hoping to pay trade, rather than Unipart Retail Ripoff price, wasn’t expecting to get them free (small order…not worth the paperwork…goodwill…mumble mumble) but that’s what happened, suggesting the automative / retail markup was pretty massive. Of course I can’t get away with stuff like that here.

Aren’t fork gaiters available as an after-market item? I’ve seen them on KTR’s and Legends, as well as the Yamaha SR150 you mention. I guess retrofitting a simple gaiter would require removing the forks, but (in the UK) you can get split CV boot kits that superglue back together once you’ve put them round the joint which work surprisingly well, so a split fork gaiter should be easy.

Once I’ve cleaned up the forks I’ll have a better idea if it might be worth trying to replace the seal.

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Sorry I didn’t have better news for you Ed.

You do at least have the option of replacing the whole fork. The Zing hasn’t been out of production that long and they may still have stock. Try finding some new NSR forks… :laughing:

Option #2 is to have the legs ground and replated. If you have the comm skills you might get a hydraulic cylinder shop to do this for you. It’s how they repair hydraulic rams that have spare parts issues. I’m guessing that this will cost more than the new forks, but you’ll have a pair of forks that will last until you bend them.

Option #3 I have heard may work, but I have never tried it because I always got by with options 1 and 2. I have heard it is possible to remove the rust and fill the pits. Remove the rust with a toothbrush and Coke. The pits have to be really clean, like bare metal clean for this to work. Next, bake the legs in an oven (I shit you not) because all the fork oil that has seeped into the metal has to come out. Don’t try to heat just the rusted spots with a torch or something like that because you’ll make them brittle. Bad.
Once you’ve done this you use dabs of a steel-filled epoxy compound marketed by a company called Devcon to fill the pits. In lieu of that I have heard superglue works too. Yeah, I laughed when I heard that but stranger things have turned out to be true. Once the filling material is hardened you sand it to the fork’s profile with fine abrasive paper, like #400 grit. Rebuild with new seals and see how it goes.

Since you have to remove and strip the forks to do any of these jobs you can fit KTR gaiters while you’re at. They will fit the Zing fork since the NSR, Zing and KTR all share the same sliders (the alloy part of the fork).

Oh yeah. ATF. It’s a decent fork oil because it has all sorts of anti-frothing agents which is good for a damping fluid, and it also has a seal swelling agent which helps keep them from drying and cracking. Not bad at all. I’ve used it a lot to cut heavier fork oils.

Standard bearings are also available from industrial suppliers at very reasonable prices. They also don’t have the minimum quantities you’d face back home, and they don’t ask what you want them for. Often as not you can get much higher quality items at these places than came oem in the bike. Ideal if you’re building a hopped up engine or just want it to go a bit longer between rebuilds.

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“what’s that, nah, sorry mate I can’t meet you at the pub for a pint I’ve just popped a lovely pair of coke basted forks in the oven…”

:smiley:

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[quote=“plasmatron”]“what’s that, nah, sorry mate I can’t meet you at the pub for a pint I’ve just popped a lovely pair of coke basted forks in the oven…”

:smiley:[/quote]

Not sure I can source an oven. I might try soaking them in petrol and then burning it off. I don’t THINK it’d get hot enough doing that to alter the temper of the steel. I’ve seen this soak-and-burn technique recommended for oil contaminated brake shoes.

So flambe coke-basted forks are the current favorite.

I think the coke supplies phosphoric acid for de-rusting, though I guess you’ve got to wash the sugar off afterward. The Turtle Wax people used to sell Phosphoric Acid in (silica?) gel which de-rusted to bright metal, but you don’t seem to be able to buy it anymore.

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Sorry, but burning in gasoline is not going to do the trick, may even make things worse. In lieu of an oven I’d look for some industrial grade de-greaser, the kind that is used for cleaning prior to surface treatment or glueing. You could try MEK. At least you can get it in pretty small quantities. All the commercial compounds I could recommend to you probably only sell in bulk.

Yes, Coke de-rusts via the phosphoric acid. Great stuff. Be sure and get it all off though. MEK will take care of that for sure.

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Bloke I knew in Leeds had a summer job in a numberplate factory that used a trichloroethylene degreasing bath. I wonder if I could (pay to) get access to one of them.

BTW we never got confirmation that the OP’s machine was a Zing. I’ve seen a “Kymco/Kwang Yang Custom 150” which seems a better match with his description. Looks like they raided the same parts bin, the seat especially is similar, but its a lot taller (“almost an enduro style”) a shorter wheelbase, has a smaller but similarly angled tank, is probably quite a bit lighter, a Hartford-style “megaphone” exhaust, (in fact the bike looks quite like a big and slightly tackier Hartford) and an enclosed chain and crash bars seem to be standard. Altogether more sensible-looking than a Zing, but then that’s not difficult.

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[quote=“Ducked”]
Bloke I knew in Leeds had a summer job in a numberplate factory that used a trichloroethylene degreasing bath. I wonder if I could (pay to) get access to one of them.[/quote]Ultrasonic cleaning is a really common process here, used in a wide range of industries. Maybe you can scout around and see who in your area has a rig and is willing to help.

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[quote=“redwagon”][quote=“Ducked”]
Bloke I knew in Leeds had a summer job in a numberplate factory that used a trichloroethylene degreasing bath. I wonder if I could (pay to) get access to one of them.[/quote]Ultrasonic cleaning is a really common process here, used in a wide range of industries. Maybe you can scout around and see who in your area has a rig and is willing to help.[/quote]

Does ultrasonics shift oil? Not saying it doesn’t, suppose it could “shake” the oil out of the pores in the metal, just always thought of it in terms of removing particulates.

Thinking about it further, although I don’t know anyone likely to let me bake forks in their oven (women tend to control ovens and are generally hostile to mineral oil and big lumps of metal) if the “gas mark for” isn’t critical I could probably scrounge up a bit of steel tubing and heat it up over a barbeque with the fork(s) inside. Or…er…I could wrap them in foil?
Could maybe have some food and a few beers at the same time. Some bugger’ll probably try and eat my forks though.

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Ed, you could Google this process instead of asking me about it… :wink:

At work we have an ultrasound line for cleaning greasy / dirty parts. There are all sorts of solvents and detergents in the solution that’s used, and it’s hot too. Ultrasound just agitates the surface so the solvents can penetrate and do their job.

I don’t know about the bbq idea. You need to limit the temps to a few hundred degrees somehow. I don’t recommend eating the tubes. Could give you indigestion if they’re not cooked properly. :wink: