Lovingly restoring the worst bike I've ever ridden.

[dilandau]

Originally Posted by Mullet5

Please tell me you have pictures of a motorcycle in the back of a Rabbit. I just spent the whole day working on my Rabbit, and it still sucks.

sorry man- no pics - it was before i had a camera in my phone.. still i got to respect you - a minsk and a rabbit convertible? hey, i dont suppose you would sell me one of your "minsks in a box"? I am sorta half serious if you do feel like 3 is too many...

[bmwhacker]

Originally Posted by dilandau

sorry man- no pics - it was before i had a camera in my phone.. still i got to respect you - a minsk and a rabbit convertible? hey, i dont suppose you would sell me one of your "minsks in a box"? I am sorta half serious if you do feel like 3 is too many...

Isn't "Minsk in a box" a STD?

[Mullet5]

Don't get too excited, I don't have a worthwhile update. I am in a holding pattern with my Minsk, partially because I am bummed that I will have to take it all apart to fix it, but mostly because I am more broke than a Russian motorcycle (ha!). I am going to SEMA on the 3rd, and I have no damn money. So uhhh, anybody want to buy my Rabbit convertible? It's very nice! In the mean time, until money finds its way back into my daily routine, I'll keep myself busy working on the remaining loose parts. Paint the gas tank, figure out how the hell the front wheel is attached, etc.

Don't worry, there's pictures...

I decided to unwrap the other two Minsk frames. What a dumb decision. Check this out...

Already out of the cardboard


I think this one is Aivars'. Maybe.






This is Larisa's bike.








One more glamor shot of mine, because it makes me feel good.


I thought it would be motivational to take the other two frames out of their boxes, not to mention saving a little bit of garage space. Sometimes I am extra dumb; this was one of those times. It did save a little bit of garage space, but christ I have a lot of work ahead of me.

Okay, now that you have taken a quick look at the pictures, let's go back and look at them together. Aivars' bike: Not so bad, far fewer obvious cracks in the frame than my bike, and just generally less haphazard booger-welded bullshit all over the frame.

Now Larisa's bike. Just look at the pictures for a while. The front of the frame looks like someone dipped it in a bucket of semi-melted solder. It's crazy. I would have taken detail shots, but I didn't have the heart.

[dilandau]

those guys who packed that up for you must have thought you were fucking nuts.

[MattW]

Originally Posted by Mullet5

I think this one is Aivars'. Maybe.

Cool - race style underseat exhausts

This is such a great thread - just made me smile on a Monday morning (not a usual occurrence!).

[TimTowtdi]

Originally Posted by dilandau

those guys who packed that up for you must have known you were fucking nuts.

Fixed

[Mullet5]

Originally Posted by dilandau

those guys who packed that up for you must have thought you were fucking nuts.

I don't know, they were Cambodian motorcycle mechanics, which means they spent most of their time working on Chinese motorcycles that have been turned into tuk tuks. So maybe the Minsks were vintage crap, instead of just crap.

Yeah they probably thought we were fucking nuts...

[gnuse]

The title was the bait.... too rare to pass up reading, then came pounds of well distributed baking soda.

I'm in for the duration.

[35Summers]

Fantastic post! My wife and I did a similar trip about 6 months ago - 4 weeks riding through Vietnam on a pair of Minsks.

When we bought them we had the same "brilliant" idea - ship them home for the ultimate pit bike. 4 weeks later we kept the helmets but sold the bikes back in Hanoi - glad to be rid of them after weeks of trouble (though it was truly a fantastic experience).

After we got back part of us wished we had shipped them home... a part that is almost been entirely gone now that I've had a chance to read this. I'm sure our experience would have been identical.

Thanks for saving us the trouble.

[mike-s]

I'm very impressed with your dedication to self deprevation, of sanity, money, time and did i say sanity? i'm sure it's worthy of a second mention. It makes my basic restoration of a rolling crap-heap gsx-250e seem like a walk in the park.

[bk brkr baker]

Triple Trouble.


Why aren't your traveling companions helping with the rebuilds?

Are they too lame?

[fishkens]

Originally Posted by gnuse

then came pounds of well distributed baking soda.

Oh god, that cracks me up everytime someone mentions it.



I've done much worse (like priming a fairing in my living room and getting overspray on everything) but it never looked as funny.

[Hughlysses]

Bump!

[Mullet5]

I am back in town, and back to thinking about the Minsk, which has been sitting over at MotoLab for a few weeks now. Derek has been trying to come up with a plan to get it fixed properly without spending a ton of money, but it is so messed up that it's looking like I have the choice of A) Fixing it correctly, or B) Not spending a ton of money. There shall be no combination of A and B. A and B are not friends. A and B don't even want to be in the same room. It's not that I am not willing to spend the money, it's that I don't have the money to spend.

So now what? Now I've got this stupid bike that I really want to finish, but there's no way I can afford to do it properly. So do I delay for as long as it takes to scrape together enough money to do it properly, or just ghetto-rig something? To tell the truth, I am leaning towards the latter. Mostly because if I save up a large sum of money, I am going to want to do/buy something worthwhile, not dump it on this goofy Soviet thing.

I need input. Fix it correctly, or not so much? And anybody that votes to fix it the wrong way is expected to give me an idea of how to do it. More beer can shims? Pack it with baking soda, wet it down, and wait for the baking soda to harden?

And of course, I wouldn't expect you to read all that crap without a reward. Pictures of the crappy bike!

Here's Derek when I dropped it off at his shop. Doesn't he look super excited to start working on it??

From Minsk build

This is looking up into the bottom of the head tube






Then I dyno tested it.

Yep, still broken.

HELP ME OUT HERE

[GHO100]

I'd think about welding in a sealed bearing assembly. I'm sure there's something that will fit within the oval, but not slid up into the head tube, and the gaps on the sides can be filled with JB weld, if you're looking for cheap. Set well enough, you'll wind up with at least a round stability point for the steering column, eliminating the play, and a stop for the correct race bearings to sit against.

Or, try to find a a bearing that will fit around the column, and then within the narrow tube section of the stem, rather than in the shoulder section meant for the race.

Another thought would be to fill the whole thing in, ie, weld enough material to the inside of the shoulder section, and then drill/machine it out. The exterior walls of the steering head will never be round, but the goal is to get the inside round, not the whole deal.


If it were me, and I had access to a welder, I'd be doing your first suggestion of cutting off the shoulder, and welding a round section of tubing/pipe to the end. Sure, you gotta repaint a bit, but again, at least it'll be round.