Friday, May 14, 2010

I'm an idiot.

So, it turns out that the Derbi was out of gas. the stock Derbi petcock looks like this:

The tank of a derbi variant is plastic and so rather than having a petcock that threads on, the petcock slips inside the outlet a the base of the tank and then a hose clamp secures it in place.

Now, if this petcock had been made with metal it would have been great. The problem is that every time someone needs to change the jetting in the carb, you have to push the petcock out of the way and eventually all of this tweaking just makes the plastic valve portion of the petcock crack and leak and then drain all of your gas out. I'm working on a solution right now but since I currently working, I don't have much time for moped work.
Here is where the crack is on my petcock:

One idea that I came up with was to take a pinto petcock (12mm) and adapt it to fit the 16mm opening of the tank. I called my dad and asked for his advice and he suggested wrapping the pinto petcock in teflon tape.

It didn't work.
So, Jona from the Ghostriders is sending me a replacement stock petcock and hopefully that will do me just fine.

In other news, I did get some TJT clutch springs.

Travis has been telling me that these particular springs are a necessity and in the brief test ride I took I have to agree. From a dead stop they really rev up nice and high before engaging which creates a sensation like popping the clutch on a manual transmission. Rooooom!!! BraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! That's what it sounds like.

Update: Rosanna just traded old Red and Gold for this...

2 comments:

  1. I'm pretty sure that at least 15% of all my moped break downs are due to no gasoline. Double derbi family!

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  2. whhaaa double derbi! at least 15% of my moped breakdowns are due to incredibly stupid things, which i inevitably over think when trying to figure it out. it's good to be reminded that i didn't know squat before mopeds.

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