The Triumph's pretty much done, well as far as a streetfighter ever is, I can't afford the new project I'd want which would probly be an XB12 Buell and my fingers are itching to tinker at something... so my friend happened to call last friday night that he'd may have something I'd be interested in...












...and last night I went and brought it home

In case you don't recognise it, it's a 2006 Derbi Senda SM 50. Got it for peanuts, gonna rebuild it during the coming winter and most probably sell it to my neighbors who have a son that's nearing 15 and they seemed very interested in it when I told em I'll be getting and rebuilding a moped.



This pic tells more than a thousand words of the overall condition of the thing. Wood screws, flathead screws, no screws, zipties, rust, twist-n-tape electrics... a lot like the daytona was when I bought it, business as usual in the realm of teenagers The previous owner had for example tried to glue (!) the starter pedal in place after failing to tighten it properly, everything is basically just hanging on for dear life with that hole band thingy that is, I believe, originally meant to hang duct canals. Oh I'll be having quite a few laughs while reviving this one. Kind of a therapeutic no-stress extremely low budget build, in case someone is daft enough to follow I'lll probly be resurrecting the blog and keeping track of both progress and costs there.

 

Nothing wrong with that. Looks like fun. Glue huh? I tell you, when I lived in that small town in NC and picked up a few side projects on motorcycles, I couldn't believe the kinds of things I was seeing these guys hold their bikes together with.

My favorite was a guy who taken off one of his rotors and calipers and DUCT TAPED the brake line (with a bolt and nut through the banjo) to the main line coming off the master cylinder... He wasn't planning on going to a singular line because he wasn't sure he could bleed the brakes....

 

You can completely ruin a perfectly good vehicle with shoddy/no maintenance /ghettofab jury rigs in no time at all to a point where it's virtually worthless not to mention potentially lethally dangerous!

Right, first pennies spent, had a pickup right next to a moped parts shop so decided to spend my statutory by paying a visit. Bought a new proper steel starter kicker to replace the aluminum one it has, have to add that the old one had the shoddiest most awful carbon fiber hydrodip on it that I've ever seen, didn't even remotely resemble cf at all, and a sheet of Monster Energy stickers to make it go yay fast

Was thinking of making a twelve-o-clock bar since the teens wheelie these over and tow each other all the time and a full cage might just be a wee bit overkill, then basically just clean everything up and make everything work since very few things do ATM. the cylinder is rusty so I suspect new water seal rings under the head, hoping it has proper compression so don't have to lift the cyl or replace rings/piston, basically just go along and see what comes. The rear brake doesn't work, according to the seller because the rear reservoir is busted which it is, but I immediately also noticed there aint pads in the rear caliper either...

 

Good deal, I look forward to seeing it.

Steel frame right? Were you planning on welding a wheelie bar into the frame? Or bolting it on?

Who needs brake pads!?

 

There's a good place under the seat at the end of the subframe, in fact you can see the flange in the tail light pic, to weld up a square wheelie bar and then bolt it to the subframe with a new plate holder/mudguard that I will incorporate to the structure.

In fact I'm not 100% on the main frame material, the subrfame looks like it's made of square steel pipe.

 

Just think of the satisfaction that comes with taking a mistreated, mutilated example of a bike and turning it into a sweet running, well restored example of mechanical perfection. And add to that the satisfaction of seeing a young man ride off to a lifetime of motorcycling joy.

You're gaining in more ways that one taking that project on.

 

Yep, not to mention our neighbor practically bought it already for their son, it will be restored according to the young man's wishes, probably teaching him with it along the process, until he reaches the required age of 15 next spring.

It's meant to be a no-stress extremely low budget tinker-therapy project that'll get me over the winter and quite possibly gain me a few franklins in the process. And since we have an agreement that I will take care of the mechanics and if they want me to change the color, add stickers or do anything else to the outlook they'll cover the costs for that so it's looking like a win-win project for everyone.

And Conrice the frame is magnetic so I'd reckon it to be steel.

 

Figured it'd be steel. That means it'll be easy to work with.

 

Started the teardown the other day, everything seems to be just as expected, as in beat to hell, broken, bodged together just enough to make it somewhat move, fluids almost completely dry, oil resembled more mud than any kind of lubricant, what little was left of it anyway, forks leaking, no battery yada yada ya... gotta keep a tight count on the costs to end up even slightly on the plus as there's so many broken things to swap that not much at all can be invested in the general appearance. In other words good pastime during the dark months also gotta study very closely what to order and where from as part prices vary wildly from shop to shop, and there has been so many versions of this bike that there are a surprising amount of overlapping parts. I already did one false buy by rushing to buy 36mm fork seals as the parts shop said there are only two kinds of shocks, the 36mm Paiolis and the DRD with 41mm Marzhoccis, this thing has 35mm shocks... a tenner here and another there add up quickly, already have about 150eur in it and can't spend much more than 250-300max to get any profit out of it other than it keeping me sane until I can get the next big project bike hopefully next winter.

 

Hey guys some of you might have noticed I haven`t been around here that often lately so figured I`d pop in and throw some pics at you while I`m at it. In a nutshell going through a pretty rough spot in my life ATM and spirits have been at all time low for a while, basically just trying to survive from today to tomorrow and hopefully forward, money`s extremely tight and some tough decisions has to be made. Basically the Triumph`s head is on the log as well, currently trying to figure out a way to be able to keep it which probly means selling my car and keeping the bike as my main mode of transportation, at least whenever the wifey doesn`t need the other car... Oh, and the neighbor will not be buying the moped either, turns out the boy`s biological dad has bought him a moped-car behind the neighbor`s back so this`ll go up for sale at nettimoto when I`m done with it... Probly not even gonna make a profit but I`m happy if I get my own back...

















Been trying to get this forward whenever time, energy and motivation meets, so not a whole lot often lol. The carb has been ultrasonic washed, bought a little US washer machine to be able to clean jets and stuff, not awfully powerful but enough for the tiny bits. The front shocks have been apart for a while now, I was able to finally hunt down 35mm seals but had to get the oils and the dusts from two different places. In fact I just got the dust seals today so hopefully getting this mostly together over the coming weekend. The engine was pretty much full of this grey sludge, specially behind the waterpump due to blown seals so had to do a throrough cleaning on the spinny bits, fit a waterpump repair kit and get a new gasket kit for the entire engine, hoping to slap it back together this saturday.

What else, both levers were snapped so swapped those, got new grips waiting to be fitted, speedo drive gear was f**ked so got a new one, new battery as it was missing it altogether, rear blinkers, was just about to buy a tail light and a plate light when I found that tail piece from a discount bin for less than either light on their own so took a risk which paid off, went on almost like OEM, all I did was drilled three holes and sawed off 3cm from the front tip as it was carrying to the inner fender. IMO looks the part too. Oh yea and gotta weld up a bracket for that rear brake reservoir as the subframe tube is so hilariously thin I`m not even gonna bother trying to cut threads on it.

Quite a lot to be done but luckily most of the rest is just fitting new parts, tidy up the electrics, replace frayed hoses etc. Hopefully not gonna have to buy anything else than new rear brake pads and possibly a chain/sprocket kit.