Yamaha Moto-Bike #4

The handlebars and top fork plate were chrome and very rusty. It was prohibitively expensive to have the chrome plating redone, so I had them powdercoated chrome. The finish doesn’t look like chrome, but I didn’t expect it to. It looks more like polished aluminum. I like the result.

The seat was disassembled and the hardware replated. My wife took the cover apart and made a new one.

The construction of the Moto-Bike model “A” seat is like the seat on “B” & “C” models in it uses tabs to hold the cover on the seat and a draw wire to pull the cover taught.

I scanned the Moto-Bike logo and used it to make a vector drawing. The drawing was sent to FastDecals and they made a paint mask from it. The mask is made of adhesive vinyl. After putting the new cover on the seat, the mask was applied and vinyl dye was used to “paint” the logo onto the new cover.

It took several trials to get a clean result with the vinyl dye. The dye kept bleeding under the mask in random places. The aerosol can not atomizing the dye well enough. To solve the problem, I decanted the dye from the aerosol can and did the spraying with an air brush. I have used the decanting trick in the past to get a better result with aerosol paint.

On the first Moto-Bikes, I cleaned and polished the wheels without disassembling them. This was very time consuming. Typically the wheels were not close to true and have a mixture of overly tight and loose spokes holding the rim to the hub.

For this bike, I decided to disassemble the wheels. It made cleaning all of the parts much easier. Surprisingly, I think rebuilding the wheel was easier than attempting to true a badly out of round one.

The kickstand was disassembled and bead blasted. A crack was welded. One of the holes for the “leg” was worn to the point the stand no longer worked. It was repaired by welding in a patch.   After cleaning up the welds, the stand was replated and reassembled.

I found this Moto-Bike for sale on Craigslist in Jacksonville, FL. A friend in Ohio purchased it  for his collection and shipped it to me for restoration.

This is a 1974 “A Model” Moto-Bike. It is notably different from the later models in it has a single seat and chrome handlebars. Orange is the original color.