More ElectroPigeon Progress!!!

It's been a great Saturday morning! An hour of coffee/writing/blogging followed by two hours of shop time - I feel quite wealthy today!

ElectroPigeon 1 is now a frame and fork. I was excited to learn that both Pigeons are rare birds - they both have front brakes!!!! (You probably have to be me to be that excited about it.)

The EVT 168 came out of storage...

...and went on a drastic diet.

 

All that so that we could get to this - a 10" brushless hub motor (48 volt), a disc brake, and a swingarm. This will be motivation and stopping for the pigeon.

Just in case you were wondering, this used to be the Pigeon's motivation - a 4-stroke 4.5 horsepower motor.

There is a little welding to done, but the EVT swingarm fits in pretty nicely - definitely better than expected. And, using a hub motor definitely leaves a lot of space for the batteries and controller. It also helps to keep the center of gravity low.

The original front inner tube - it's red rubber! A Yokohama - made in japan!

May your projects flourish!

(Electro)Pigeon's Progress 9-2-15

Buy your own (non-electro) Pigeon!

 

Yes, I know it's been six weeks since the last ime I showed progress/worked on ElectroPigeon 1, so for those of you keeping up with this particular mechanical saga, I did squeeze in an hour last night to work on the bike. Progress happened! The back of the body came off. the motor came out, and the rear swingarm came off. We are getting down to bare bones!

Look, Ma! No motor!

I learned last night that she's definitely a 1959 C-75 Riverside Waikiki. (What do you think? Should we name her Kiki?) I have been happily surprised that most of the bolts unscrew easily. (My last Vespa dismantle involved lots of snapping and grinding.)

Look, Ma! No rear wheel!

 

The next big steps are to get the body pieces off of the front, to clean the frame, and to pack and label all the pieces. Then it's time to start dismantling the donor EVT bike. (And it does indeed feel better to make progress!)

May you have joy in progress soon!

ElectroPigeon 1 Progress and Shop-Time Zennishness

My wife was working late last night, so I took a little time to get started on ElectroPigeon 1. Stage one is the dismantling. For years now I have worked mostly on Vespas and bicycles, so it was great to see how something else was built.

  

A very Teutonic pigeon on a Japanese horn

 

 The reason I have wanted to build a Mitsubishi Silver Pigeon is that it is an interesting melding of Italian Lambretta styling (The Lambretta LD has always been my favorite scooter design.) with American Cushman drivetrain layout all through the interpretation of the Japanese who were beginning to emulate German design principles. How's that for an international mouthful? Also, it has lots of room to work and lots of room for batteries. My first scooter conversion was a Vespa and there was little room for either.

Handgrip and light switch - great branding!

 

So, there I was down at the shop. It was a hot evening, but the shop had a nice cross breeze passing through. Mosquitoes were absolutely absent. Through streaming music I heard Joe Jackson's "I'm the Man," Elvis Costello's "Allison," and Colin Hay's acoustic version of "Overkill" back to back. I try to keep my dreams pretty simple, and I realized that I had spent a lot of time lately daydreaming about being there doing exactly what I was doing. I figured out that the dream has not been to have an ElectroPigeon (or two) - the dream is to build an Electropigeon.

 

The holder for the D-batteries that ran the original lighting - with Mitsubishi logo

The VIN plate under the (very rusty) seat (Lots of brands on this scoot!)
 

 Rear brake pedal and drive belt
 

FIG - Farmers Insurance Group

 

Original Wards Riverside 4"x8" tire

 

It's funny, I don't care to be a hermit or lock myself away from family and friends, but a few occasional hours alone and working toward a goal sure feeds the soul.

 

May the journey be at least as satisfying as the destination for you too, and may the destination be a better place for us all.

 

(I'll keep you posted on Pigeon progress as it happens.)

Minipost: Two project beginnings and a gecko surprise

More humble beginnings

Okay, so it's not much progress, but Knippa helped me drag Electropigeon #1 out of the back room and place it on the motorcycle stand. The journey of a thousand amps.... (For you gas-o-holics out there, we also dragged his Vespa Rally project to his house and placed it on his motorcycle stand.)

Also, I ordered 500 red wigglers from Uncle Jim so we can begin vermicomposting soon. Worm woohoo everybody!

Cooler than the Geico spokeslizard - but they may be cousins

And I added some produce scraps to the compost box today and saw this little dude hanging out - a Mediterranean house gecko. He's doubled in size since the last time we encountered each other.

May your green projects flourish and attract exotic and interesting visitors!

Happy Independence Day!

Electric Pigeons! (Vintage Scooters that is)

Electric pigeon - further proof that you can find anything on the internet!

And another electric Pigeon (link)

Yep, I have been holding out on you.

The rundown:

It's no secret to those of you who hang out around here that I love vintage scooters, that I have built a vintage electric scooter, that I was a little disappointed in that first draft project, and that I have wanted to build another vintage electric scooter that's a little more practical in the real world. And I have been looking at viable candidates for a successful EV conversion. The two top contenders have been the Allstate Jetsweep (thanks to Bo Diddley on that one), and the Mitsubishi Silver Pigeon (thanks to Mitsubishi on that one).

For more than twenty years now, my friend Spencer and I have swapped bad habits, mostly in the form of motorcycles and scooters, sometimes in the form of music and books. And I am thankful to have him as a friend and bad-habit supporter. He showed up at Scooter Workshop Night a few weeks ago and casually mentioned that he just went to look at a BSA motorcycle for sale (pause for dramatic effect) and the seller just happened to have a pair of Silver Pigeons.

You can imagine the rest, and here are photos to help the imagination: 

Silver Pigeon #1, Forklift, Lucy

Silver Pigeon #2, Forklift, Lucy, Spencer, and the passerby who tried to buy both Pigeons

Silver Pigeons #1&2, No Forklift, and Lucy

Silver Pigeons in the coop with EVT168 donor bike

I will leave details sketchy at this point, and I promise that these two will be slow projects, but #1 will have a hubmotor from the EVT scooter, #2 will have the running gear from an early Zero motorcycle, and I need to sell some other toys to finance the building of these two.

And snagit, I am excited!!!

May the Pigeons soar cleanly and greenly, and may you be excited about your own green projects!

Thanks again, Spencer, for a great deal on these Pigeons in the rough!

If you liked this post, here are a few more that may interest you:

http://mesquitehugger.blogspot.com/2013/10/solving-one-electric-vehicle-problem.html

http://mesquitehugger.blogspot.com/2014/01/a-few-local-lubbock-evs-for-your.html

http://mesquitehugger.blogspot.com/2013/11/just-couple-of-cool-electric-motorcycles.html

http://mesquitehugger.blogspot.com/2014/04/some-of-mhs-favorite-scooter-moped.html

http://mesquitehugger.blogspot.com/2014/03/petroleum-free-transport-how-willing.html