Moar bikeshite

[wuvvum]

From the sublime to the ridiculous (well OK, the CBR isn't exactly sublime, but it's got the potential...).

 

I can haz won this:

 

 

I can't wait to get this badass mo' fo' on the road and go out terrorising Speedfights...

[Cavcraft]

Kwal. Wtf is it a Mobylette or Raleigh or something?

[Slaighty]

Raleigh Wisp?

[Station]

Do you actually drive/ride these on the road?

[wuvvum]

Raleigh Wisp, yup. And yes, I will ride it on the road once I get it running again. It's a 1968 so it's tax exempt (saving me 15 quid a year, w00t), and the engine is basically a Mobylette unit so larger carburettors and expansion exhausts are available should I ever decide that I'm tired of living.

[Station]

I'd love one, they make sense, can I ask what mpg they do, I really do want something like this. I think I could live with the abuse from my fellow council estate scalliwags as well, have you ever been mocked while riding such a thing?

[wuvvum]

From experience with similar-engined vehicles I reckon it'll do around 80-90mpg. I've never had anything quite this daft-looking before, but I have had the piss taken out of me when riding a Mobylette and a Tomos, and a group of 16-year-olds once started singing the Knight Rider theme tune when I pulled up outside a newsagents on the Spacy, so I would imagine the Wisp will raise a few giggles.

[garethj]

What’s the correct attire for riding one of those wheeled monsters? New scooters are ridden whilst wearing shiny trainers and tracksuits, the discerning rider wears a textile jacket on a proper motorbike and obviously race leathers are worn by the crotch rocket boys. What do you wear on something like that? I think I’d feel a bit of a pillock with a full-face lid for example

[nigel bickle]

I had a blue one of these -around 25 years ago. Marvellous.Tuned I could hold 35-40mph-outdragging the smartboy's Fizzies at the time, whilst lookingridiculous in a biz suit.Had a bet to ride it to work for a week -20 miles each way.Won -but blew the top of the engine exceeding 45mph (downhill)on the way home Friday.Binned it as irrepairable.Rubbish in the rain -the belt slipped....

[garethj]

I had a blue one of these -around 25 years ago. Marvellous.Tuned I could hold 35-40mph-outdragging the smartboy's Fizzies at the time, whilst lookingridiculous in a biz suit.

Did you get your knee down?

[wuvvum]

OK, I picked this up this evening, and I've got a couple of questions for "those in the know":-Is the drive belt supposed to be made out of a shitload of little strips of leather riveted together? Seems more like something you'd see in the '20s than the '60s - and I've seen 1950s Mobylettes with rubber belts.-How fast do you have to pedal these things to get them to start? The only pedal'n'pop I've owned was the Peugeot 102 (two of the mobylettes were kick start, the third would have been pedals originally but they'd been removed so it was bump start only) and that started very easily - I was pedalling the Wisp as hard as I dared given its wonky pedals and the clutch wasn't engaging. I don't really want to start running up the road pushing it to see if it'll bump - I've got my street cred to think of...

[Torsten2001]

My first bike was a Wisp UYY734F, twist the throttle forward to decompress and when it catches twist back, if all is good it should fire, pulling up the little chrome lever on the left for a spot of choke. The belt should be rubber but you could get leather riveted belts back in the day. Very simple to work on and parts are next day from Aplins of Bristol!

[wuvvum]

Yep, decompressor is working fine, but even decompressed I'm not getting any crankshaft spinnage. I'm going to have to swallow my pride and try bumping it I think - if I pedal it any harder I just know my foot is going to slip and I'm going to bugger my leg up again. I think it's got the wrong pedals on it as the LH pedal catches on the flywheel even though it's bent outwards.Thanks for the tip re Aplins - most useful to know.

[ifc63]

I was pedalling the Wisp as hard as I dared given its wonky pedals and the clutch wasn't engaging. I don't really want to start running up the road pushing it to see if it'll bump - I've got my street cred to think of...

I know it might sound a bit too obvious but on later Mobys there was a little lever affair on the big flywheel on the LH side which you had to turn to engage the pedals to the engine, otherwise the pedals just drove the rear wheel so you could pedal home in an emergency.

[wuvvum]

Yep, this has the freewheel thingy on the pulley, and that's locked in - it's spinning the... erm... the outer bit of the clutch assembly (whatever it's called) over fine, despite the weird and rather slack riveted leather drive belt, but the clutch doesn't seem to be engaging and turning the engine over.

[garethj]

I'm going to have to swallow my pride and try bumping it

Towrope around your mate's car, other end over the bars and towards you (only wrap it once!) then hold the other end of the rope in your hand. If it all goes wrong let go of the rope and it'll come away easily. Towrope around yourself or tied around the bike is GR8 4 £250 from You've Been Framed

[Torsten2001]

Are you getting any movement on the off side of the crank? Might just be seized?

[Torsten2001]

On that tip Aplins do an engine rebuild service by post I believe

[wuvvum]

The engine's turning over fine when I spin it directly, with plenty of compression, so hopefully that's OK. My current gut feeling is that the clutch is either borked or has seized due to lack of use - I'm going to have to take it to bits and investigate. Either that or try to spin the engine over with a rope wrapped round the magneto housing...It also needs a front tyre, and I've found out that they're not made any more - there's two for sale on eBay, but they're £55 apiece plus postage, and I'm not paying that. So it's either fit a pushbike tyre or try to shoehorn a 3.00x12 tyre onto a rim designed for 2.25x12.

[Torsten2001]

The tyres are from an Ariel 3 moped or an Raleigh RSW20 bicycle, they should be available but I would try some old school bicycle shops but bare in mind for an MOT there only needs to be visible tread!

[wuvvum]

The tread's not the problem, the problem is that the sidewall is so perished that when I pumped the tyre up the inner tube tore a fugging great hole in the outer. There are a couple of 12" bicycle tyres on the Bay, but the tyres on the bike at the moment say "Moped" on the sidewalls - would this be an MoT requirement, or would a pushbike tyre pass?

[Torsten2001]

MOT requirements for mopeds are pretty rudimentary so so long as it doesn't say "Not for road use" you're fine!

[wuvvum]

Cool. Pushbike tyre it is then.Think I might try a socket on a battery drill on the flywheel nut to try and start the engine - a mate of mine knocked something similar up to start his lawnmower when the string broke, will have to see if he still has it. Maybe giving the engine a good rev will be enough to free the clutch up if it's got stuck.

[Torsten2001]

To be honest I've never had a clutch seize and I've been through hundreds of Raleighs and Mobylettes, be interested to see how you get on with the socket!

[ifc63]

Cool. Pushbike tyre it is then.

 

Think I might try a socket on a battery drill on the flywheel nut to try and start the engine - a mate of mine knocked something similar up to start his lawnmower when the string broke, will have to see if he still has it. Maybe giving the engine a good rev will be enough to free the clutch up if it's got stuck.

WARNING I've seen somebody do this on a Malaguti kids offroader.

It ended in tears when the torque of the drill snapped the crank end right off with the nut still attached to it

[garbaldy]

Cool. Pushbike tyre it is then.

 

Think I might try a socket on a battery drill on the flywheel nut to try and start the engine - a mate of mine knocked something similar up to start his lawnmower when the string broke, will have to see if he still has it. Maybe giving the engine a good rev will be enough to free the clutch up if it's got stuck.

WARNING I've seen somebody do this on a Malaguti kids offroader.

It ended in tears when the torque of the drill snapped the crank end right off with the nut still attached to it

on the other hand i burnt out two electric drills trying this on a rotax engine but i suppose it had way more compression than this bike

[wuvvum]

Cool. Pushbike tyre it is then.

 

Think I might try a socket on a battery drill on the flywheel nut to try and start the engine - a mate of mine knocked something similar up to start his lawnmower when the string broke, will have to see if he still has it. Maybe giving the engine a good rev will be enough to free the clutch up if it's got stuck.

WARNING I've seen somebody do this on a Malaguti kids offroader.

It ended in tears when the torque of the drill snapped the crank end right off with the nut still attached to it

I don't think there's any danger of that with my £9.99 cordless drill. In fact I reckon I'll have to hold the decompressor open to get the thing to turn it over at all...

[Des]

My first bike was a 50's Moby, and had the same problem of not turning the engine over, it was the centrifugal cluch shoe linings soaked in oil, I suppose it must have been 2T oil that had slowly worked in over the decades, I took them out and blowtorched them, and never looked back. Any time I let it go over 30ish, downhill, the timing would slip, I think even now I could set the timing with my eyes shut, and when I put my hand in my pocket I still expect to find a Champion L88A.

[wuvvum]

Could be something like that. My 102 used to refuse to start in the rain as water got into the clutch and made it slip. I've never known a centrifugal clutch in a moped to seize before either, but then again this one has been off the road for 29 years, and I've never owned a moped that had been dormant for that long.