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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.

Two of the Moto-Bikes that I restored were missing the headset plug.  The plug is plastic and held in place with rubber that is compressed by tightening a screw on the top of the plug.

Using an original plug as a model, I made a replacement from 1″ delrin rod, rubber tubing, a tee nut and a screw. The delrin plug was turned on my lathe.

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.

The replacement seat that was on the bike didn’t look much like the original banana seat.  It was also well worn and was not easily recovered, so I tossed it and searched for a replacement.

After spending a considerable amount of time searching, I settled on the Sunlite Polo Seat This seat that was the same length and appeared to be the same shape as the original Moto-Bike seat.  It didn’t look close in real life. There was way too much padding which made the seat look too big next to an original seat.

After removing the cover, I reworked the seat by bending the sides in to match to width of a Moto-Bike seat.  I also relocating the mounts to match an original seat and ground material from the bottom edge of the seat to thin it. My wife made a new cover.  I first tried cutting the original seat foam but the result was too bumpy, so I replaced the foam. The bottom of the seat was painted gloss black like an original Moto-Bike seat.

We’re very happy with the result. The new seat is difficult to tell from an original.

Stripped and bead blasted all of the painted parts to prep them for primer. All the parts were primed with TCP Global white epoxy primer.  Handlebars and top triple clamp are satin black. Seat and bottom fork clamp are gloss black. Frame and swingarm are Yamaha yellow.

I purchased a frame holding jig for motorcycle frames off eBay. It was designed to be used with an inexpensive engine stand. I copied the design, scaled down the head tube and made this one for bicycle frames.

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.

I found this 1976 Moto-Bike for sale on Craigslist in Maryland. I had a friend in the area purchase it for me. It’s currently with my cousin in WV. I’ll pick it up next time I visit.

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.