I love mopeds so much that I built my own
Jerry's homemade moped, built from scratch
Jerry Rulf
Jerry putting his 'Coccinella' (ladybird) through her paces outside Wemoto
Here is a unique and cool build story from Jerry, motorcycle and moped lover extraordinare - and what a bimpy machine he has built! He came in to show it to us at Wemoto and here is the story in his own words...
"I love mopeds - but nobody has ever really made my dream moped - so I decided to build my own...
The fantastic prices that certain classic mopeds are now fetching also heavily influenced my decision, as I couldn't afford to buy another of my first proper moped, a Fantic Ti50...which I sold for £75...but that's another story.
Big wheeled, retro and vintagey...
The story of this build started with my friend's beach cruiser pushbike which had lovely cream tyres, then I discovered and bought on ebay an amazing pair of alloy MTB girder forks. Slowly a big wheeled vintagey retro moped plan started to hatch.
Half man - half bicycle
Old Raleighs have pushbike front brakes and others use pushbike rims. So, I thought, why not go half bicycle? I should add that I am not a heavy man.
Initially designed with a Tomos A3 engine, I changed this to a Puch E50 type along the way, due to parts availability and the discovery that there is a whole world of tuning goodies out there.
Research revealed that the best engine was the 70s kids scrambler, the Puch magnum x - 4hp, 17mm carb, kickstart.
I built the frame up from bicycle parts at the front, magnum x around the engine, and a homemade rear end and swing arm.
The steering head angle, wheelbase etc I just copied from my CG125, as I know that it works.
California Dreamin'
After fabrication of all the little incidental bits, came the first start-up - which was rather underwhelming due to a clapped out small end and leaky carb and a general reluctance to rev cleanly.
So a new crank/con rod assembly (only £55!) went in, and while inside I matched the transfer ports and replaced the broken dykes top ring (the only place I found to stock these was in California, the excellent 1977 mopeds shop).
After some fettling it's all good
The biggest headaches of the build were the throttle cable and gearing - this was a matter of guesswork which finally involved the only outsourced bit of work, a special rear sprocket carrier, allowing me to use regular Puch Maxi items on the magnum hub. This gave me a huge amount of options.
Time for tea
Keep it simple is a mantra I fully buy into, the bike having one wire to the coil, then an HT lead to the plug. Less to go wrong, and the kill switch is a hand over the air filter (coffee jar lid and tea strainer). I found that vintage tea strainers seem to have a finer mesh...
The most satsfying part was building the rear wheel, I had never done this before, and it was good fun. Discovering that the bike weighs 35kg wet was brilliant....well that makes a 70kg Fs1e seem lardy!
Parts list:
- tank - Italjet bambino
- shocks - Raleigh RM5, grips - Mobylette
- engine and coil - Puch Magnum x
"A big thanks to the guys at Wemoto for their knowledge and patience with all the cables bearings chain etc that had to be measured and referenced, I can't recommend them highly enough."
Thanks so much for this great story Jerry, glad we could help and good luck with the next project!
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