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Cateye Midi Bike project

Introduction

Once again, I'm going to use FF for a place to record progress on a project :p

6 months ago, i picked up a tatty "cateye" type midi-moto bike for £20.

These have a Mitsubishi designed ‘leccy start 50cc 2-stroke engine that, whilst fairly reliable, is not powerful, in fact no where near as good as the Chinese Cagllari-type engines. These bikes top out at 20mph or under, and pick up speed almost as fast as a tortoise. In addition to this, the footpegs are located too low, meaning that cornering…. doesn’t really happen (n)

However, they have a few things going for them: they are a decent size for adults to ride, whilst still being small; they have full suspension; and they have proper lights and fairing built in – true miniature superbikes. Furthermore, the engine bay is quite large….

I had no intention of trying to make it run as it was, so put in a shed and forgot about it.

Then Jordan and his brother kind of persuaded me to do something with it….

Stripped of all but the essentials:
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What the bike looks like when new:
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And what should be going in:
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- Lifan 125cc 4stroke pit bike type engine, which should hopefully have a 170cc head kit bolted on :slayer::slayer::slayer:... we shall see.

I still havent made a final decision regarding the engine choice, hopefully i will have something ordered by the end of this week, because without a new engine, i can do very little more :)
How I rode it the other night, with a makeshift tank and no controls or pegs

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Footpegs welded on with a bit of bracing (old pitbike ones that Dec gave me)

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Controls (clutch and front brake) fitted. Original tank was modified to work with the "normal" setup the Lifan engine uses, fitted, then basic fairings were fitted
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She rides pretty well now. We got a video but it developed a carburettor problem, so needs a rebuild.

Im going to ride it a bit more to make sure the drivetrain is ok. Then i will modify the fairings to fit bigger people better, fit the rear brake, then paint everything :)
 
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what you are looking at is the new generation of tempered steel "Carbon-ceramic effect" discs, invented by me (y) Basically, repeated stops at high speed cause the disc to actually glow bright red, Ferrari FXX styleee!

Not surprising since the brakes were only designed to stop it at speeds of under 20mph :D Im actually suprised that they have lasted this long tbh, at least they are vented to minimise fade, even when brightly glowing they work a little....


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New sprocket brace, all it is is a bearing on the stub shaft with a machined holder and slotted brace bar for adjustability. It has solved all my transmission problems that the unsupported extension caused - such as falling off and wearing out sprockets all the time.


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Trimmed and fitted the full fairings to see what they would look like, but i think im gonna ditch the nose cone, mainly because I've lost the lights for it :(

Next to happen will probably be a full strip down and all the chassis corners braced, because according to jordan the frame flexes whilst wheelieing :p
 
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yeah it looks the part, but the quality of the plastics is so poor that anything more than the minimum is a hindrance - badly fitting and very easy to break. Ive ditched them and im going for the naked look :)

Next to break i predict will be the front struts, theres way too much flex on them :(
 
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