[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.