Derbi—The Red Power

[toratora]

Sometimes it takes all day to deal with little issues that don't even seem to show any progress at all. This was one of those days. I had to use all the tricks to pull this off. I had stuck parts, and a broken bolt. The EZ out didn't work too well on this one either.

Both bars were stuck do to oxidation. Heat and force were employed to free things up. Then it was brass wire brush, and green pads to clean things up. I had to do this to properly align the spin of the bars. The controls are pined in place on the bars so to get them where they should be requires spinning the bars in the triples.

This bike had been dropped and the bar end bolt broken off inside the bar. It was exceedingly difficult to remove the broken bolt.

Things looking pretty again. All that work and the only noticeable thing is that there are now two bar ends.

[toratora]

I have to say it's been a rough couple of wrench days. I keep feeling like I'm about to finish the bike, at least to a ridable setup, and then I get blind sided by yet another issue. Once again the Artek pipe is causing issues, but I'll get to it. I was so happy because today I was going to get all the plastics on the bike. Started out with the upper faring mount. These are frequently a pain because they are nearly all bent and the plastic pin doesn't like to move through the rubber bushings. I had some serviceable parts and with a bit of work this was installed.

Next up was the front cowling. Once it was on it looked so nice. But it too wasn't with out issues. The upper faring right mirror mount isn't lining up correctly. It's probably an issues with upper fairing mount. Like I said these things always seem to be bent.

I had noticed that the oil pump was missing its cover. I have a few of these so I installed one. Looks so nice. But I failed to get a photo of it, so here's the photo before the cover.

And then it was time for the side farings. I had been waiting a long time for this point. As you can see it's going to look nice.

But Artek. This is going to be the end of the line for this pipe. It runs nice, and I have it tuned to this engine and carb fairly nicely for a few quick checks, but it has been such a pain in the ass that it just has to go. I think at this point it would be fine on a Senda, or a naked bike, but clearly it doesn't work with the farings.

The blinkers are all working nice. The headlights are too. The brake light works from both brakes, but the tail light isn't working, and it doesn't seem to be the bulb. I have to run some more tests, but I wasn't seeing any voltage for the tail light. But it was time to pack up for the day.

¯ \_(ツ)_/¯

[toratora]

It's finally mostly there! Pretty much all but the tail light is working.

To start with I swapped pipes. This is just a temporary installation until I can get another pipe repaired.

This worked better, and didn't interfere with the front of the plastics, but it did with the tail part.

After much adjustment action things started clearing up. But it still had issues. The rubber bumpers that help keep the plastics away from the pipe are missing on this bike. So I took a well nut and set it up as a bumper.

Another issue was the power line to the starter. I had to reroute the wire. Hopefully it will be able to survive the heat.

There were a bunch of other issues, but I didn't get photos of them. The pipe required another change in the jetting. Now it's down to an 88! The bike seems to have less power than it had with the Artek pipe. I once rode a bike that had one of these pipes on it, and it seemed to be quite a strong bike—this one should be stronger with all the other things on it, but it doesn't feel that way. Probably because my perception of a strong bike has changing having ridden a 19HP GPR.

Having brought the Malossi bike up to speed it was time to think about the other bikes for a bit.

It's funny. All three of these bikes started off as basically the same model—two of them Silver and one of them Red, but other than that everything was the same. Over time and attrition they have became three very different bikes.

The other night at Speedy's we broke the bead on the tire of the Silver bike. There was a shimmy in the rear that I thought might have been caused by the mounting. We broke the bead, rotated the tire a bit, and filled it back up. I got the rear wheel on the bike today and the shimmy is gone.

The sad news is that the front seals have totally given up and are leaking quite a bit now. Time for some forking around!

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]It's ironic that this bike doesn't have a single Malossi part on it, but it has the Malossi decals—maybe someday.

I finally got a chance to do some riding around on this bike today. It's getting there. The pipe is louder than expected, compared to other pipe that I've used. Probably this bike is going to end up with the Arrow pipe.

[toratora]

Went to the D-Store to watch the MotoGP race today. Good racing too.

I'm finding the little things on the bike that need work. The petcock is FUBAR. Leaked out a bunch of gas. And it seems that 120ml of fork oil is too much for these forks. The ride is way too harsh. I'm going to have to look into that amount again, but at least they aren't leaking.

[toratora]

Derbi de Mayo got moved out to this coming weekend due to rain. I still have to get the bikes ready. Here's some shots with the umbrella girl at the Derbi paddock. I need to do some wrenching today, but it is so hot—27°C, which I know to most of you is probably pretty cool. But remember SF is almost always in the teens, and not even the high teens, so I'm just not acclimated to this kind of heat!

I've seen a lot of "umbrella girls" in my days, but that by far is the skinniest to date ...
Perhaps next time you are out picking up pizza you could spare a slice for the poor girl !!!

Hey Xero, For some reason she likes grease better than pizza!

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Yes Virginia that is a Jolly Moto.

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It's been a while since I've posted photos of the Silver bike. Richard rode it on the Derbi de Mayo today. Before the ride I had to deal with the fork seals, and front brakes. On the Gojusan ride the fork seals started to leak and got into the brake pads which really made them suxor. I had some forks that I had already done some seals on, but again because I put in too much oil I thought they were leaking. I drained out 45ml of oil from the two forks, and well they went pretty well. No leaking with all of the riding today.

When I get a chance I'll change out the seals on the bike's forks and put them back on the bike, but for now it's nice to have the Silver bike back on the road again. Oh and we fitted the Jolly Moto to the Silver bike too.

[toratora]

All this wrenching is producing a nice line up of bikes for GPR Camp. Hopefully your bikes are coming along too.

[toratora]

I made a post in the Race area, but Luis needs a mention here too because he too rode Derbi.

I can only hope that I get to go doing what I love the most.
RIP Luis, and Marco -