I think this may be the last update post about it, because I’m pretty much done with it. Moped has been restored. Looks like it just rolled out of the factory :)
Last time I wrote that I fixed the electric system, wasn’t much of a hassle. This time I just did some finishing stuff.
The first thing I did was repaint the fuel tank. The white color really fits with the red body. After the paint has dried, I put a rubber tube around it. Originally there was some rubber around the joint and I didn’t have that. However I had some nice rubber tube that fit just right and looks as good.
Next thing I did was work on the turn lights. I had to drill 2 holes, 1 for each side to get the wire through. Before it was ugly and was bent around the back fender. Because of that I had the fires cut off a few times when I was riding along and bumped the wheel on some uneven road, the wheel touched the fender and cut the wire. I decided to solve this by drilling a hole and getting the wire through it. This way the wire is hidden from plain sight, looks better and doesn’t touch the wheel.
While working on that I also experimented with LED’s instead of regular bulbs for turn lights. By idea it requires less energy to operate, so I thought it would be ideal for this kinda stuff. Since with regular bulbs the generator cannot supply enough power to all the components, and so when you want to show a turn while having the headlight turned on, the headlight gets dimmer, or the turn light doesn’t light up at all :P
Well the moped wasn’t meant to have turn lights on it anyway, so it’s only fair that it acts that way.
With LED’s the situation didn’t really change. It draws less power, sure. But the brightness of it wasn’t anywhere near the regular heat bulb and LED’s emit directional light, so it’s not perfect for this.
I did this mainly because I couldn’t find anywhere to buy bulbs I needed and I needed 2.
In a few weeks I went to Gariunai market for other stuff and stumbled upon a car part section. Dude had all sorts of electronic parts for old automobiles and of course had the bulbs I needed, all kinds of sizes and power ratings :D with that I ended those experiments with LED’s and just use regular bulbs for turn lights instead. I don’t use them anyway, it was just to complete the overall looks :)
Having those out of the way, I proceeded with the moment I have been waiting, for a very long time – to put the stickers on it. I was keeping those until I was finished. I wasn’t able to find original logos to buy anywhere, one dude wanted as much as 50LTL for 2, which is fucking ridiculous. So I had to make my own, and so I did.
I had one logo which I scanned to use as a sample, traced it out to make it black on white, filled it with red and was done, basically :P
Got them printed out, laminated, sprayed one side of it to hide the transparent laminate with same red paint I used for the moped body and used double-sided tape to stick it on. Result is even better than the original variant and only cost me to laminate them. You can download the finished logo here.
This is basically it. The final thing to do is put mirrors on it, but I don’t have any way to mount them, gonna have to make something up.
Now it’s ready to roam the fields. I get it out and running on weekends to ride it through grain fields and woods. Really cool, have to use it now while I still can :)
