Flauski

Next up, after bolting in the engine was sorting an exhaust. I had an original tidy A100 exhaust but always kind of wanted an expansion chamber. Saw a fella on a Facebook group "Jupri Muffler" advertising custom A50 stainless steel expansion chambers in Thailand. I thought they looked good and I liked the upswept style. His exhausts didn't look too Aliexpressish for my liking. Got in contact with him and told him what I wanted. I got concerned when another fella in Oz had one made and the pipe out of the head was reduced down in pipe size to go into the expansion chamber. He warned me away. His also didn't fit quite right and had some holes in the welding. Jupri also sent me some videos of his work which was essentially welding on a tiled floor with zero safety. It was a real battle with broken English, I sent plenty of pics and measurements. I asked if he used a 'jig' and he had no idea what I was talking about. He did send me a lot of prayers and kept referring to me as friend in our really long messenger conversation lol. I tried screwing down the price knowing they love a good barter but even at $250 landed in NZ it was a good deal. Anyway, $240.00 NZD later and a real punt, I got one made. I had to bend the rear mount a little but other than that it fit not too bad with some tweaking. Not sure I would risk it again to be honest. I then had to source a kick start as there was no way a factory one would clear the pipe.

Hopefully fixed

Then spent hours and hours cleaning and polishing. Used a lot of water / tin foil to tidy up the chrome.

At the same time I replaced a lot of the necessary consumable items - tyres, chain, sprockets, wheel bearings. I did a full oil system flush. Boy that was a prick, trying to bleed the oil line from the pump output to get it feeding back into the engine. It took using suction from a brake bleed kit to suck it as far as possible up the line first as there was not enough pump pressure / suction to get oil going vertically up the line. I even replaced the oil pump with another to ensure it wasn't an issue with the pump. I had to replace the speedo unit with a later model one as the glass on the original was smashed. It took some modifying as the original unit had much longer mounting posts. Turns out the speedos for this model are unobtanium. I also had to try find a battery side cover. They are a unique shape to the other A/AS/AC models. Turned out to be a very difficult task worldwide. I first found one through a Facebook group, thanks to a pilot in Belgium. Then, as luck would have it, I struck it lucky when when I found another A100 on Marketplace in Norsewood and it was black! The rest of the A100 is a project for another day The A100 has a larger headlight/nacelle/brake/forks but the rest is essentially the same. The headlight is a unique shape, hope I never break it! It is even different from the AC50 headlight which is also unique. I managed to find two NOS AC50 headlights through CMSNL and used one / sold the other to be able to sell the orange AC50 above. I also managed to get a NOS air filter chrome side cover from CMSNL.

Registered it and putted around on it for a while. Then the engine started making bad knocking sound so it gave me the motivation to start the A100 conversion. Knocking A50: The A100 engine was from a much newer model and had been rebuilt by the previous owner (but it had sat for a while.) All the cases had been polished but the aluminium had started to go chalky and corrode. I polished it back up. I was very suprised that the A100 engine all bolted straight in the A50, no frame or pedal modifications needed at all. I did have to do a tiny bit of wiring. I wired in the more modern A100 style loom which included a rectifier rather than the original using the battery to rectify voltage setup. I also had to rewire the ignition at the outputs on the key barrel were different.

When I got the A50 home, I cleaned the carb in my ultrasonic then squirted in some fresh fuel. Checked oil / pump and it fired right up. It was very grubby having sat in a shed for a long time but had the perfect amount of patina. It was also missing the battery side cover. First start up running on a syringe worth of premix fuel + oil;

I have had soooooo many projects over the years and rarely can I say I have finished one to just how I want it. 1969ish Suzuki A50. Single cylinder, rotary valve, two stroke. I was stoked to find it. In my opinion it is up there with the best looking factory 49cc motorcycles next to a Yamaha RD50 / Honda CB50. Made a conscious decision that I will build it for me to keep. Sold here in NZ as an A50, some markets an AS50, some an AC50. They even did a high pipe version in other markets. Pretty rare bike here too. I got it in 2020, in a bulk deal of three bikes; A50, AC50 + A100 on the cusp of the first lock down. This is the orange AC50 tucked in between the A100 and A50 on the trailer: The AC50 had a smashed headlight (unique) but sourced another per below and got a new battery before selling it. I def prefer the grey tank of the three Suzuki options. Has the best looking tank IMO of the 3 Suzuki 49cc options with A/AS/AC moniker. Blue A100 on the trailer turned out to have a poked engine so ended up selling it in parts: A while later I found another blue A100 on Facebook marketplace with a rebuilt engine and a spare engine. This is the other A100 I bought with the rebuilt engine but I swapped in the spare engine (it came with) and sold it.

I feel kind of dirty saying this but I really like it.

So stoked for you. Needs some 3 piece wheels and done. A mate of mine (who has owned at least 10 x 1600s in the last 20 years, a bit of an expert and still owns a fj20et one.. ) told me that when it comes to Datsun 1600s, UJ axles may be less smooth but CV axles click and fail bad when 1600s are lowered where they need to be lowered to. I'm gonna run UJ myself. I'm also gonna run R180 clutch LSD from a Subaru STI 2004. Much better than viscous. Only some 2004-2006 STI are R180 clutch type 3.9, so you need to do ya homework. See this site for total LSD conversion info. Same same as 240z and 240k. You will need 27 spline stub axles for the subaru conversion. Standard Nissan is 25. I got mine from Kameari in Japan, cheaper and better than the US equivalent that people talk about. http://www.kangamotorsports.com/blog/2016/6/18/datsun-240z-limited-slip-differential

Dude, I'm lovin this. Two tone + legit accessories. Nice.

I will have to get my Yammy F5 going and meet up for a putt putt.

Ahhh, I saw you this morning putting along Langley. Nice bike! Unless there is another one as tidy with a green helmeted rider. Disappointed I had had my headphones on so I was late to turn and see.

Nice, only about 5 Kawasakis?

Awesome, can't wait to see ya old man's car ripping up the hill.

If your rebuild kit didn't come with a float valve replacement that will be your culprit for over fuelling. As I pointed out, the original one was dicey and not operating smoothly. Good to hear its runnin and smokin'!

Still sitting in a box waiting for me , like the rest of the bike

It is not going as yet, a looooong term project. I am trying to cull the fleet a little. I will send you a message.

My bad, I see you said the tag does match the plates, I thought it says doesn't. I would still get the original colour info for the vehicle that the plates belong to (from land transport) and see if it matches the original colour od the shell in front of you. A mistake, even though it would be epic is still plausible when they are assembling cars in the 70s, literally grabbing the next shell and next ID tag off the pile and uniting them.

I'm getting lost here. tag don't match shell? tag don't match plates? plates match shell? If tag doesn't match plates, what does chassis number on tag come back to?

Mazda 1300 coupe - two door coupe roof Mazda 1300 sedan - 4 door Mazda 1300 saloon - 2 door same body shape as 4 door. Well that is how it was explained to me moons ago. The interwebs says a sedan/saloon is the same same Tomato / Tomato. I can't remember which body style it was but it was not correct, I just used sedan / saloon as an example because it rang a bell.

Sound straight forward but have you actually tried to change the body type recently? I thought it could be done with a conversation but learnt there is now a form. I tried that once a couple of years ago, same deal. A car registered as a saloon when it was a sedan. I got told I needed to fill out the form and get proof in the form of a statement from the manufacturer and that the chassis number matched the body style so never bothered. Once again, gotta get the right person on the desk on any given day.

Ahh, good to know what sort of car. So like quite a few NZ assembled cars in the 1970s by Todd Motors where shells were shipped here with no chassis numbers stamped and not necessarily ever were (ala Datsun 1600s and some Mazdas) and they just relied on a manufacturer ID tag. So the ID tag on the car, on face of it, is for the wrong body style and recorded manufacturer (Chrysler/Hillman) and that is what leads you to believe it has had the plates tags swapped? Has the question been asked directly of the current/previous owner? It may be just a mistake. I have seen a ton of mistakes for old cars. Peoples recording ability in the 70s-80s was just absolute rubbish. If it was assembled here in NZ then it could have been some muppet on the production line that put the wrong tag on the wrong shell. You could investigate this further. If you contact Land Transport they should be able to tell you any history of colour changes to the car. ie, its original details may have been changed - colour or body style. It might be obvious that the car in front of you was originally brown, or you have scratched some paint off and seen brown at the bottom (unlikely someone has EVER done a bare metal interior/exterior paint on an Avenger.) If the original colour for the plates, matches the car in front of you, this could indicate a mistaken ID tag put on the car. I have used the above before. A car I have owned had a chassis number stamped into it that looked like it had been done by a kid (wonky) and in a different place from JDM assembled models. But after confirming chassis number range allocation for exact model year for NZ assembled cars as well as the different chassis number location directly with the manufacturer I took a further step. I confirmed with Land Transport that the car was originally registered as yellow and had been changed to green in 2006 and blue in 2008. I could see areas of the original colour in the boot were yellow under blue and green. I was then satisfied convinced that the car was legit and the person who stamped the chassis number needed their eyes fixed. A further glimmer of hope is in the engine no. Land Transport (not car jam) can search via engine number. The details will only be lost if the original car was deregistered around 1990. Failing that all you can do is ask a Land Transport inspector, spell it all out and hope you get one that is up with the play / cares about old cars. Even that is difficult.

True but he is asking about re-registering. Good luck trying to convince Land Transport or an inspector that putting plates and tags on a vehicle was not done for a dishonest purpose. The fact is, you cannot swap the identity of one vehicle to another regardless of the reason. To be re-registered, the burden of proof is on the person proving (physically with engine/chassis/ID numbers) that it is not stolen. Not that it might be or might not be because it is impossible to determine.

It would seem that he is screwed. Engine no? Without some firm proof as to the original identity, he will never be able to prove its not stolen. Buyer beware, due diligence, caveat emptor etc.

OOsh got any spares for the F5? I have messed up my front end (steering head + shocks) by mixing bits with a YB100....