Rick's Garelli Restoration Project

 

Well, back at it again. It's the summer of 2001, but August already. The heat waves seem to be over and the drought in southern Ontario seems to have broken. Fall and then winter is coming so it's a good time to provide idle hands with a project. While today is August 21, this project began a month ago. I'll back up a bit and fill you in.

July 21, 2001

A warm Saturday morning, me sitting in front of my computer rather than riding...go figure. I had decided to browse the bike listings on E-Bay, with no intention of bidding on anything. I normally check out the BMW bikes, looking for an old one, but not really into parting with the kind of money that they demand. From there I check out the Brit bikes, then Honda (looking for a Dream 305) and then settling on a close look at the category "other makes". This is where the interesting machines come from.

Browsing the list, lots of big custom bikes going for lots of money. One bike caught my eye, the caption read "1900 Other Makes : Garelli sportbyke (Garelli American Sportbyke 98cc)". From the thumbnail it was clear that this was not a "1900" bike and reading the seller's info he informed us that he had no idea of the year but had to put something down. The year wasn't important at this point anyway, it was the picture that began my fascination with the bike. Here's a picture of what I saw on my screen that morning.

A pretty, little bike, badly faded on one side, just faded on the other. It has that tiny engine with some kind of cover on it....no idea what that is at this point. The bike was strangely appealing, as was the bid at the time. I think that bidding had reached $350US, a price that I was sure would be exceeded significantly over the day and a half of bidding that was left. Now, I had never bid on E-Bay before and I thought that I might, this once, fully expecting to be outbid as the pace of bidding became furious as the closing hour drew close. So, I registered and went to the bidding page. Ah, E-Bay will bid for you at regular increments up to a limit that the bidder sets. Why not try that out, setting my limit to $400 (US), certainly that little beauty will go for more than that! You see, I was just playing out the experience with no intention of actually spending the money for the Garelli. I would have loved to had been in a position to buy it but it was a time to get my expenses in order. So, with expectations of being out bid I clicked the right icons and rcheel(0) became the high bidder!

The auction was to be over the next day (July 22) at 1831h, Pacific Daylight time. I checked periodically over the course of the 21st, nobody was bidding!

July 22, 2001

Up and at 'em, first thing in the morning I was going through the normal routine....put on kettle, turn on computer. Once the computer was up and running....check e-mail and return messages. Then, on to the web to see by how much I had been outbid over the night. To my surprise, I remained the high bidder, the bid having gone up to $384.50. Being an E-Bay novice, I assumed that the flurry of bidding would start in the final hours. So, over the course of the day I checked in periodically to find that my high bid remained. I went out for a barbecue at the home of my friends, Frank and Paula, and we all checked the bidding over the course of the evening. By the time that I went home the bidding was still stalled but I had every expectation that I would end up off the hook. When the bidding closed, at about 12:30 am local time, I was about to become the proud owner of the Garelli. I was actually happy about this although I would have to further modify my spending habits to pay for it in the long run. Now my interest turned to finding out more about the bike.

I should add at this point, I am an obsessive personality. That will become apparent as you read these paragraphs. A good trait for someone in my job. Unfortunately, I have learned that the only alternative to being obsessive is to not care. I can't obsess over everything so I am selective. In the past I have obsessed over house renovations, beer making, wine making, wood working, my XS11 Standard, my XS11 Special, buying this Garelli (there are a bunch of details related to the actual purchase that I will not share here for the time being). If I don't obsess I just let it go. I have done that with: house renovations, my own body, some things that I shouldn't have, my truck, etc., etc.

More to come, plus pictures.

July 23-Aug. 19

I have to fill this in later but over this time I met a lot of real nice folks who love Garellis. I gained a lot of information, particularly from Robert Gardiner of the UK....ain't the web wonderful. I'll fill this in a little later....a story of how quickly good info can be gained from some of the wonderful folks on the web.

August 20, 2001

A long story but the bike arrived today. I really appreciated the help of the seller and his friend who was passing through and dropped off the bike. I could finally lay hands on it.

It was raining when it arrive so I tarped it up in the back yard. I have a screened in back porch so I decided that it could live there for a while. Out with the ramp and I rolled it up and onto the porch with no problem. I wish my beemer was this easy to roll up the ramp! All evening I checked it out periodically, like checking on the well-being of a new puppy. I was already smitten with the bike.

August 21, 2001

A quick look in the morning and I realized that it was in really great shape. The paint was faded badly but I knew that from the pictures on e-bay. The obvious shortcomings are:

1. No spark so it doesn't run (magneto problem??).
2. Broken tail light lens.
3. Mirror snapped off.
4. Centre stand does not work.
5. Gas tank is mega-rusty and the stopcock may not be salvageable.
6. Throttle cable doesn't want to work very well.
7. Both tires (tyres) are shot...badly cracked.

Of course, it is generally a very clean bike. The little 98cc engine has good compression. All in all, not a lot to restore this bike to a good, original-everything machine. Luckily I bought a Kreem Kit to fix up gas tanks years ago when I was working on the '78 XS11 Standard. I never got around to using it.

August 22, 2001

Pictures today. I took them yesterday but I made them smaller for the web. The links, below, are to jpegs that range from 23 to 33 KB. If you want even more photos from larger (124-273 KB) files with much greater detail you can go to the index at:

http://craton.geol.brocku.ca/faculty/rc/hobbies/garelli/initialpics/

But for now, check these out.

1. A frontal oblique photo of the Garelli in the garden.

2. Right side profile of the bike.

3. Left side profile of the bike.

4. Front on view of the Garelli.

5. Rear view of the Garelli.

6. Front oblique view of the engine and exhaust.

7. Left side of engine and carb.

8. Closeup of the speedometer and odometer showing 1232 miles on the machine.

9. Close up of run-in instructions on the transparent decal on the top of the gas tank.

August 24, 2001

Just a bit of time with the bike today. I cleaned up coil (actually, it was almost like brand new) and checked wires for continuity. When I bought the bike the seller said that it had no spark. The first thing I tested was the wire going to the spark-plug....no continuity. Wouldn't it be nice if this is the only reason for there being no spark. Off to Canadian Tire* to get a new spark-plug cable and see if that makes a nice difference.

*Note: Canadian Tire (Tyre) is a store that has been around in Canada forever. It has a wide selection of automotive parts and is used by most do-it-yourselfers in Canada. The store has evolved into a Box Store and seems to be competing well with the recent American stores that have come into Canada. In Ontario, where I am, the store gives out "Canadian Tire Money" as a discount on all purchases.

August 25, 2001

Well, I was going to try to leave the carbs (oops, I mean carb) in the hope that they were pretty clean. However, Robert Gardiner had written that it was an easy thing to do on this bike so....at it I went this morning. Really simple little carb, no diaphragm on the slide, the float has the needle right on it and the whole thing seems to float upside down. There is a little plastic filter where the gas enters the carb and it was laden with some kind of "fluff"; I have no idea what it was. No rust, though. I'll put an inline filter between the tank and the carb when I have it running. Now, all parts soak in varsol overnight and then a good cleaning of brass parts with acetone (cleaning out the jets a little better) and a good blow dry. I bought a small compressor a couple of years ago and it is just great for cleaning and drying purposes. I'll put it all back together in the morning.

Robert's e-mail had a number of suggestions regarding the lack of spark and I'll follow them up. I cleaned up the junction plate of electrical connections (beneath a cover plate just behind the carborator). Very oily (chain oil) and filthy but cleaned up well with acetone spray (ignition cleaner). I sprayed a corrosion inhibiting product on the plugs before reassembly. Still no spark. I have not yet been able to get to the magneto because I can't get the fan off, it hides the magneto. Here's a picture of the fan that's on the outside of the flywheel of the magneto.

August 28, 2001

I finished cleaning up the carb, it was remarkably clean and putting it back together was uneventful. The jets only fit in their proper place so I couldn't even screw that up! The carb looks like new and I'm sure that it will run fine.

I also cleaned up the stopcock for the gas tank. I can blow air through the main and reserve inlets so it may well work when I fill the tank up with gas. To reduce the risk of tragedy I'll try it with water before I start with the process of sealing the tank.

Sept. 5, 2001

Well, I dragged the Garelli up to Peterborough, Ontario, last Thursday and my father had a go at the problem with the lack of spark. To give you some background, he is my biological father (not the dad that raised me) and he was a master mechanic with the fire department, he sold and raced Bultaco bikes for many years, he continues his work as a machinist working out of his own shop.

After dinner last Friday we went out to the shop to take a look at the bike. He checked out all of the most likely problems: cleaned the points, checked the kill switch....still no spark. He then began probing with his multimeter....checking continuity. He quickly found that everything had continuity with everything else.....a short somewhere. Fortunately the wiring is quite simple and his focus turned to the magneto. Within minutes he found that a screw that held some contacts in place was touching the housing...shorting out the bike. He gingerly reorganized the wires, spring and insulated washers and put them back together. We checked for spark....had lots of it. We put the magneto back together and that was that. Now I have to get to the gas tank and put tires on it....it will then be ready for my first ride. The only problem is that I'm running out of time. I'll likely be down to weekly entries but the bike will soon be ready to run.

September 8, 2001

I've had deburring chips in the gas tank to abrade the loose rust off for some time. Last night I gave it a last few swishes and started with the Kreem kit. Stage 1 is a bottle of muriatic acid that I diluted as per the instructions and filled up the gas tank, leaving the top open to vent. In the morning I drained off the acid and flushed it well with water. There is still lots of rust but it is softer and I can see that some of the metal is etched down to bare metal. It needs more work, though. Before the lining material can be poured into the tank all of the rust and crud has to be off the metal.

The tank needs another application of acid, maybe two, to get rid of the rust. Care has to be taken at this point as the acid could eat through the metal, especially where the rust has consumed a lot of solid metal. The local Home Hardware store sells muriatic acid (used mostly for washing concrete) so I picked up enough for another bath. 1 part acid to 4 parts water. I'm not sure of how long to leave it this time. I'll give it an hour and check it out, saving the acid in case I need to apply it for a longer period of time. With any luck I can finish sealing the tank tomorrow morning. I'll have to order tires this week so that next weekend I may actually get to give the bike a bit of a ride.

To Kreem or not to Kreem? I just went to the XS11 site (www.xs11.com) to read what the tech tips had to say about cleaning gas tanks. The bottom line seems to be that the best thing to do is to take the tank to a radiator shop. Rad shops clean and seal gas tanks using a process that is very similar to cleaning rads. According to Jeff Hall's report of an article that he read in a bike mag, they do a better job than any of the do-it-yourselfer kits. I have the tank quite clean right now but I'm a little reluctant to apply the sealer because you can't really see that the rust is all gone before sealing. If there are patches of rust then the sealer may not adhere to the tank walls, possibly pealing off in future and causing problems that are worse than the rust itself. I'll call around and get some prices from rad shops this week.

September 10, 2001

Well, I phoned all of the local rad shops and none will do the job of cleaning and sealing the gas tank while keeping the paint intact. Because I'm putting off painting for a while I want the original paint as it is. I'll give another rinse with muriatic or phosphoric acid on Saturday and then go to completion with the Kreem kit.

I pulled the front wheel off tonight and began cleaning it up prior to having new tires installed later in the week. I've always been wary of drum brakes because I have had no experience with them. Wow, are they simple now that I have one apart. The pads are almost like new and the drum, while very slightly rusty, will clean up well with steel wool. I'm using 0000 steel wool to clean the chrome and it's turning out nicely. I made the mistake of not washing the rim well beforehand and that seems to have resulted in some scratching...oops. They'll end up rechromed in the long run. The chrome on the rim is very thin and some large (a few square millimetres) patches have come off. A good coat of wax should inhibit further rust for a while.

February 5, 2002

Well, the last year flew by and here we are in 2002. I have progressed very little since the last entry. Here's the story.

The tank sealed up nicely with the Kreem kit. There were some pin-holes after the acid etching but the Kreem sealed them up well. I put the stopcock back on and it does leak. It should be fairly easy to find a new one with metric threads to match the tank.

Towards the end of October all was ready for a test start up. Tank back on, wheels (with spanking new tires) and chain, etc., etc. I couldn't quite recall the correct distribution of the throttle cable...but what the hell! I put the oil/gas mixture into the tank and I was ready to give her a kick. One kick, two kicks, on the fifth kick it started and revved like the devil. Not knowing exactly which button was the kill switch, I blew the horn, and kept trying. I never did find the actual switch. Instead, I managed to get the stopcock closed and pulled the sparkplug wires before the carb drained. Undaunted I tried again, hoping, I guess, that somehow the bike had fixed itself over the few minutes that it was shot off. One kick.....whirrrrrrr.....revving high again. At that point I adjusted the throttle cable and found that I could influence the rpms by flexing the cable......I had it wrapped around the handle bars inappropriately and that was causing the problem. Oh well, it started and that was what counted to me on that day.

I decided that there was no point in getting on the road as the cold weather was coming and I had a major problem: the steel tubes inside the fork are very badly corroded right where the fork seal sits. The corrosion involved the loss of up to 0.5mm, or so, and given its position I would never be able to get a proper seal. I found shorter seals of the right ID and OD from a moped shop in California. The big problem is replacing the tubes. They are 25mm OD (not quite 1 inch) and such stock is proving very hard to find. I will come across some soon, I hope, and a friend of mine will machine the tubes into the right shape (not much to do, thread one end, drill one hole and machine a couple of groves for snap rings). I'll write more when I make some headway on this problem. Other than that.....things are shaping up for a Garelli summer of 2002.

More to come......

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