San Pedro Nightshot

San Pedro Nightshot
Originally uploaded by numbersix

A couple of weeks ago the LB and SGV guys from the Total Ruckus site met up (and a couple of OC guys made the scene. As our numbers thinned only a few of us made the whole ride. Much adventures were had and a couple of not so great photos were taken. By the way, it was cold, it was COLD.

Key Mod: Mr. Horsepower Antenna Ball

I decided to do a key mod for my Honda Met. I bought a Mr. Horsepower antenna ball from Amazon for about $10 after shipping.

I removed the plastic flames from the back and was able to split the plastic at it's seams on the rear feathers. There were two pegs in the back holding it together. I removed the plastic from the original key and cut two grooves in the key metal. I lined up those grooves the the pegs in the antenna ball and siliconed it in.

I found a ball link keychain that was the perfect size to shove in the hole where the antenna usually goes. The chain holds pretty tight but can be removed if needed. My other keys (house, bike lock, mailbox) can hang from the antenna ball or I can shove the keys in my pocket and the scooter key can hang out.

I like the Snap-On / Craftsman key mods but I wanted to do something different that was more in theme with my scooter. A little more old school rat rod.

A Big Ruckus in Iron City

As seen on a ciy street in Pittsburgh.

Scooters are hugely practical in cities, even cities where it gets cold, and Honda's Big Ruckus scooter is a personal favorite of mine. The fact that there are scooters there makes me think that Pittsburgh is probably an OK city after all.

Not wild about that seat cover tho' ;)

thePrisoner (covets the Big Ruckus)

More mods...

Last weekend I did some more work on the Met. After fumbling with the Kitaco CDI I bought for a week with no luck, I took the CDI and my met down to the scooter shop in Orange where I bought it. I left it there a couple days and it looks like they created a new wire harness for it. I will get some pictures of the CDI wiring up shortly.

Besides the CDI we fabricated a new cover for the radiator. I found an old piece of punched metal grating laying around rounded off the corners and made a box out of it.

I also wanted to do something different with the rear blinkers. I like the look of the standard Met "bullet" lights but I wanted to move them in closer to the body. I was looking into modding the standard lights and removing the black rubber spacer but my dad came home with a little present from the Long Beach car swap meet.

For $10 he picked up a set of what turned out to be Harley Davidson lights. They are the same bullet shape but a little less deep so they can sit closer to the body without having to shave anything down. They are also chrome metal as opposed to plastic. We fabricated some longer mounting brackets and I cannibalized the wiring from the original lights. I'm pretty happy with how they came out. It makes the rear look more narrow and the light cluster reminds me of a retro future rocket.



I have all the parts on order to replace the airbox and do a rejet. So, I guess that's the next project.

The Ratropolitan

Most of you may have heard that I had a little fender bender on my scooter. I was side swiped in a hit a run riding to work on October 4th, 2008. My scooter took a little damage and was covered by my insurance. After I got the scooter back from the shop I decided to repaint all the old pieces and swap them back out for the new ones. I also did a ruckus swing arm conversion, installed the front basket, replaced the stock mirrors with bar end mirrors, rebuilt and moved the gps mount and some other little things. Here are the picture of the new scoot. It still needs some fine tuning but it's getting close. Eventually, I am going to have it pinstripped as well.

The next projects are to redo the cover for the radiator, fix the rear brake line, modify the air box, and rejet.

For now I am dubbing it "The Ratropolitan". Over time I would like to make it look more and more like an old school rat rod.

Man Down

Jason in hospital.  Jason is now at his parents house and in good spirits, and by good spirits I mean Morphine.

Side Swiped in the OC.

Thursday morning i was scooting to work down Irvine Center Drive / Edinger Avenue nearing the underpass for Jamoboree in Irvine, CA. Traffic was slowing and the last thing I remember was checking my mirrors and looking over my shoulder to change lanes...

The next thing I remember is waking up in an ambulance heading to Western Medical Center in Santa Ana. In the emergency room I had a quick flash of being bumped by a silver car but that's it. I think maybe I tried to change lanes from the right to middle lanes while a car tried to change lanes from the left to center lane. Basically, from what I can remember I was side swiped and the driver of the car got away. According to the police he took off so fast none of the witnesses could get the plate number.

Lucky for me the damages to myelf and the scooter should easy to heal. I broke my left shoulder and probably fractured a couple of ribs. I have a couple spots of road rash on my left ankle and knee. Everything on the scooter inlcuding my black mac book was recovered by the police, towing company, or EMTs. I haven't seen the scooter yet, but reports say there are only a few scratches and the rear left panel was cracked.

The part that annoys me most is that I just finished painting, chopping, and reupholstering the Met. It was starting to look pretty cool. You can see the changes I had made here:
http://totalruckus.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=22820

I will post some pictures of the damage to the Met tomorrow when I can take them in the light. In the mean time I just want to warn everyone out there to be careful. No matter how much attention you might be paying to the road, other people aren't watching out for you.

On a side note, if anyone has the left rear panel for a met they are looking to let go for cheap, please let me know. Doesn't matter what color, I'm going to paint it black anyway.

Modifications: Leather Seat

I decided to try reupholstering the seat on my Met. It came out pretty good for $25 in material and having little to no experience in scooter seats. If I had the mad sewing skills I could get rid of the folds on the corners. But overall, I'm happy with how it came out.

Modifications: Choppin' & Paintin'

In the next couple of weeks I am going to do a Ruckus swing arm swap so I thought I would do some prep work by chopping off the rear end and doing some painting. Getting the body off the Met is kind of a pain without the service manual but we finally figured it out. I cut off everything under the tail light and moved the license plate and new side reflectors up and attached them to a Honda rear carrier rack I purchased. I also painted the side cowls and the front leg guards gloss black. I used Krylon made for plastic spray paint and put on about 4 coats. In a couple of weeks I will polish it down to get rid of some of the imperfections. I'm pretty happy with how everything turned out. It's a huge change for only $15 worth of parts. (Well, unless you add in the price of the rear carrier. That was another $60.)

Besides the Ruckus swing arm swap, I plan on upgrading the exhaust and rear shock. I'm also searching for an old vintage suitcase to make a rear carrying case out of. I'm also going to have a friends father pinstripe the entire scooter for me. I can't wait to get it all done and see what it looks like. It an expensive new habit I've found. But it's lots of fun.

You can see all the pictures I took here:
http://albums.phanfare.com/3089946/2656749#imageID=45396505

It got dark by the time we were finished today. I'm going to take some better pictures of the finished product tomorrow.

So-Cal Super "Stroker" Sunday - August 24th, 2008

(Photo by Slevin from the TotalRuckus.com forum)

Tony, Toby, Adam, and I rode with the guys from the TotalRuckus.com forums to the Super Stroker Extravaganza in Van Nuys this weekend. At one point were riding with 37 other people from all over Orange and Los Angeles Counties. It was awesome. Here are some links to photos and routes.

Images from the TotalRuckus.com forum:
Page 4, Page 5, Page 6, and Page 7

Jason's Pics From the ride:
http://albums.phanfare.com/3089946/2613265

Route Info and photos from Toby:

Super Stroker Ride Route Info 8/24/08

Widget powered by EveryTrail: GPS Geotagging

Additions: Handle Bar GPS Mounting Kit

I just bought and installed a RAM brand GPS handlebar mount that I ordered from MountGuys.com. The kit cost $22.83 shipped and arrived in about a week.

Pros:

• Easy installation. (4 Phillips head screws)
• Perfect fit for my Garmin Nuvi 360
• Easy to snap in and remove GPS from mount
  

Cons:

• The circular part of the mount that goes over the handlebar is a little big for the Honda Met. It's probably made for a full size motorcycle. I had to run the wire bundle for the turn signal, brights, etc. through the mount so it would stay in place.
• The mount sticks up a little higher than I thought it would. Slightly distracting.
• Mount is not adjustable without tools. So get it where you want it the first time.

Overall, I would say the GPS mount was worth it. It was cheap, easy to install, and arrived quickly. Now, if only I could hear the GPS while I was on the road. It's not quite loud enough to hear the turn by turn instructions while I'm on the move.

Capistrano Beach, Aug 9, 2008

Capistrano Beach, Aug 9, 2008

Jason, Tony and Adam pose for a photo at the turnaround spot of our scooter ride. Unfortunately Jason could not remove his helmet, even while eating.

Modifications: Removed 2008 Honda Metropolitan Restrictor Plate

Based on recommendations from Tony and reading some posts online I decided to try and remove the restrictor from my 2008 Honda Metropolitan. It has only been two and a half days but I can definitely tell the difference.

The restrictor plate is a thin piece of metal that cuts down the flow from the intake into the carburetor. In the pictures I have seen of previous model years this restrictor looks like it cuts the size of the intake almost in half. On the 2008 it only seems to cut it down by a quarter to one third.

The plate is a little tricky to get to. Here is how I removed the the restrictor plate:

1. First remove the seat and storage compartment from the scooter. (Don't remove the screws from the seat hinge. They do not hold down the storage unit at all. I found this out the hard way. Luckily I found the "nut" for the bottom of the seat hinge.)
2. Loosen the front screw (closest to intake) that clamps the carb to the intake tube.
3. Slide the carb off the intake tube. (It doesn't have a lot of wiggle room because of all the wires going into it. But you will need that little bit of space to get the tools in to remove the intake tube.)
4. Using a 10mm socket take out the two bolts holding the intake tube. (We had to use 3 different size socket extenders and a universal joint to make this happen. The two bolts are hidden under the cross beam for the frame and wedged so close to other parts of the engine you can barely get the tools in.)
5. Remove the restrictor plate. (Make sure the "O" ring and seal stay in place and are undamaged.)
6. Put everything back together.

After we put the bike back together I went for a short ride. I immediately noticed an increase in speed "off the line". It jumps up to between 25-30 mph much faster than it did before. After riding for a couple days I believe I have also noticed a 1-3 mile increase in overall top speed. I'm about to put a fresh tank of gas in. I will watch to see if there is a significant decrease in miles per gallon over the next week or so.

Recommendation: Corazzo 5.0 Riding Jacket

So, it turns out that having a scooter is going to be my new money pit. You don't just buy a new scooter, you have to buy all the new things to go along with it: insurance, helmet, gloves, bike locks, etc. My most recent purchase was this new Corazzo 5.0 riding jacket (as seen above). Corazzo makes a bunch of really cool jackets but I personally like this one the best. Mostly for the look but also for the functionality and protection it provides.

Here's the list of features as stolen from the Corazzo site:

• Removable CE Rated Knox® Armor in shoulders, elbows & back
• 1000 denier Cordura® abrasion and water resistant shell
• Reflective 3M Scotchlite™ trim for 360° degree nighttime visibility
• Superior venting for warm days
• Two-inch longer tail & arms designed for upright riding
• YKK® high-grade zippers throughout
• Fleece lined collar and cuffs

The jacket comes in sizes S-XXL but check their sizing chart to make sure you get the right size. You want all the pads in the right place. I went for an XL to fight my "modern cut" mid section and that puts the shoulder pads a little low on me. I should be able to fix this by velcroing or sewing the pads into place inside the pouch that holds them.

I suggest ordering the jacket straight from the Corrazo site. They don't charge sales tax outside of Oregon, so I was able to get it for just under $245 shipped. I saw the same jacket in a scooter shop in Oceanside for $285 before tax.

The only bad part about the jacket so far is that the plastic they use for the pads smells really bad after being taped up in a box for 2 weeks. Hopefully, the smell will air out in a couple days.

Check out all the other great Corazzo products on their website:

http://corazzo.net/

or their online shop:

http://corazzo.net/store/

My 2008 Honda Metropolitan

After Tony & Toby got their Ruckuses (Rucki?), I, of course, had to succumb to the scooter peer pressure. Lucky for me, when Tony & Toby want me to buy something I don't have to do any of the work. I just have to fork over the dough. Tony hunted down two Metropolitans at the Honda dealership in Huntington Beach through a Craigslist post. Mine and one other sold in less than four hours. The picture from my iPhone makes it look a little more orange, but it's actually red. I am going to start doing some modifications to it shortly and will post about them as they come up.

For now, I have been commuting to work at least four days a week which is about 18 miles round trip. Plus, we've done a couple of other short rides for fun and I use it for running errands close to home. I've only bought gas for it twice and it's got about 215 miles on it. (It rolled off the lot with only 5.)

So, thanks Tony & Toby for letting me throw away my future financial stability for a Scootin' good time today.

We Have Scoots!

Well, the picture is of Toby and Tony's Honda Ruckuses. It's the start of the end. Soon there will be all sorts of lame half hearted stories/reviews and who could forget, photos. With the advent of the iPhone we can post crappy photos and anecdotes to boot with aplomb. So, sit back and be prepared to be underwhelmed.

Today We Ride.

Well today I rode the ruckus to work in irvine. This is the first time I have actually ridden the scooter to a job site. I have in the past gone to a friends house to carpool. And that was about 20 mi;es each way. This was much shorter but just as fun.

Now, Toby rides his ruckus to work every day. I think his commute is about 10 minuets each way. Come to think about it Jason rides his to work most days as well. I'm sure he could tell you himself the distance.