[Monzatastic]

Bad Monza news today folks. I pulled the engine to tear it down so I can begin the rebuild process. Apparently the farmer I bought it from fancies himself a mechanic. F U C K. When I picked it up, he was trying to start it in the yard, and thankfully, it had stopped sparking. If he had gotten the thing to fire it would have eaten itself on the spot. He told me he had ‘rebuilt’ the c lutch which, as far as I can tell, meant he took it apart and then put it back together minus a few parts and no more than finger tight. So, here we go.

The stock topend is pretty epic, I had never seen the inside of one before. The transfer ports are wider and slightly taller than a VIP, while the intake is wider but more squat. There is also a boost port with a cut out in the piston. The piston has thiner than usual rings, and the top one is a dyke. The topend is unfortunately ruined, looks like a ring shattered and gouged it pretty deep by both transfer windows.

The head is also really cool. Super big fins for maximum cooling, as well as a really aggressive squish zone. It takes long shank spark plugs.

This one was my bad. In the process of pulling the driven gear off the shaft, I applied a little bit to much force, and it shattered. The bad news: it is not the same as a 1 speed NOI, which has a primary reduction of 16/71, while the Monza has a primary of 18/67. The maybe good news: I called Nick’s Moped in Coldwater, Oh, and he may have a gear for me! Just to hedge my bets, anybody care to count the teeth on their parts Avanti one speed??

When I split the case I found mud. Like a lot of it. I have no idea how it got in there. It would seem that Farmer Mechanic failed to replace the two rear case bolts when he put the cases back together. He also failed to reinstall the bearing face spacer on the main shaft. He also may have damaged the mag side bearing seat, as the bearing that is in there slides in and out a good half inch. There is red RTV all over the place. Bearing and seal set looks to be the same as a regular 2 speed VIP.

This is the crank as I pulled it out. Note the small piece of ring jammed in the big end bearing lube slot, as well as the seal spring stuck on the trans side. The crank is fine, I don’t this dude ever got it to run in it’s current condition. I think dude smashed a ring, split the cases trying to “fix” it, and then couldn’t figure out why it didn’t run. So he sold it. This is going to be a lot of work.

I have been after a set of Garelli NOI Matic circle mags since 2005 when I first saw them in a picture on mopedarmy. I finally got one; as in just one. I am the proud owner of one rear Garelli circle mag. NOS courtesy of Chad over at Quarter Kick Check this shit! Hottest mag wheel ever.

The Monza build is slowly coming around, lack of funding non-withstanding. The cylinder will be a Mec Eur knock off of a vintage 49mm Zeta; huge ports, poor machining, chintzy material, but hey, doesn’t need to run forever. 49mm bore yields a 73.5cc displacement. I had one of the vintage Zeta’s for a while and it ripped right up until it smeared piston everywhere.

The clutch on a Monza GT is the same as an NOI, so I’ll be using this sweet Mercadosur made 80.80 shoed clutch straight out of South America! Not sure what the 80.80 stands for, but it’s an aftermarket replacement for the rubber clutch from a kickstart NOI. This of course means that my starter clutch will no longer work. Goodbye clutch lever, hello pull start! Both the kit and clutch came from Ed (mopagen); he has epic Garelli stuff. It seems to mostly be from South America where, apparently, Garelli’s are still a big deal.

Obviously I’m still a ways off. I’ve got a 21 phbg that should do the trick, but I haven’t yet figured out a pipe. Nor does the damn thing run yet. Winter is the operative word here. Blast in the spring.