When the ciao was running decently, it would top out at mayyybe 20mph. I knew variated stock ciaos were slow, but this felt like something else. I took the variator apart to find that the previous owner had removed half of the weights. This is great for doing wheelies, but awful for going faster than 15mph.

It's a stock 8 roller! Now to order some weights...

Fast forward and there we go! I put it all back together, but the thing was still an insane pain in the ass to start, so I ordered a new belt (the gates toothed one, everywhere was out of the mallossi) and quickly realized that I needed to elongate the mounting holes for the engine.

Engine bay cleaned up(sorta) and the stupid carb - shield thing taken off. You can see the belt there that came on it when I bought it, some hutchinson belt that was super skinny. Slipped all day.

Rear engine mount. That faint square in the dirt you can see to the left was where there was a metal piece riveted to the frame, to keep you from sliding the engine forward. Pulled that out and got to dremellin'.

Before, on the front lower mount. I had been working away for 10 minutes with a shitty little bit I had in the shop when Will came over and gave me a new bit, said he used them for porting. Changed out the bits and zzzzziiip, it was perfect. That bit cut through the metal so fast I almost went too far with it.

After! Yeah, I know my dremel work looks like shit, but you can't see it when the engine is mounted anyway, and it worked. Got everything all back together, so next post will be starting it up + tuning.

So I did what I told myself I wouldn't and forgot about this blog. This past weekend, Raniel was visiting from Orlando and stopped by the Swoops garage while I was working on the ciao. He asked me when I was going to update the blog, and I remembered that I hadn't touched it in forever. There's been quite a bit of progress since then, but I'll be posting in pieces as I get my pictures together. This post - the rear clutch.

 The main problem with the ciao when I got it was that it was a HUGE bitch to get the rear starter shoes to engage the bell. I figured oil on the shoes or maybe a broken spring would be the culprit, so I was pretty surprised to pull it apart and see that the keyway was fucked.

I was pretty bummed since I'd need a new bell, but I had a new one within a few days, so it was on to inspect the starter shoes, as well as the pads on the clutch itself.

The starter and clutch pads were a little screwed up, the former being more so, but with a little sanding, everything went back together and it engages perfectly! I rode around like this for a week or two, and then it became increasingly hard to start. More repairs needed. Next time- variators!