First, if you don’t know what a Puch Maxi is, go look it up on wikipedia.  I’ve seen it termed the Volvo of mopeds.. sounds about right to me.  Simple and rock solid, assuming its taken care of.  Concerning the e50, the one-speed engine on the majority of Maxi’s, it’s been said that ‘if it had fewer parts in it, it wouldn’t be able to run’.  As one of the manifold motives behind this blog is to attract people to the moped aesthetic, it would be appropriate to go into more detail on moped virtues - I’ll save that for another post though.

With that, I’ll introduce this first project.  I’ve got three of these maxis sitting on my back porch, all of which I acquired via different craigslist ads last summer for next to nothing.  My intention is to restore all three, and sell them to any three friends or acquaintances for the price I paid plus parts, on the following conditions - a. they must prove to me a genuine interest (not trying to see them fall back into the disrepair I got them i), and b. are down to start the first upstate NY moped gang, headquartered in Albany.  For more on moped gangs, see mopedarmy.com.

This first moped I got from a guy probably a few years older than me in a neighborhood of Schenectady.  The image in the CL ad looked just fine, and at $50, I was fine getting something with a seized engine, rusty, whatever.  Anyway, the guy led me into his backyard, and it was next to a shed on its stand.  It was wet from recent rain and looked like it had probably been rained on..often.  Both tires blown out, seized engine, rust everywhere, especially in the gas tank.  WISH I had a picture of this at the time I bought it, but alas, the great work has begun.  Here’s the frame, disassembled and after some good scrubbing with soapy water and rag.  It really doesn’t look that bad!  The varnish stains around the fuel valve are the only real discernible damage, but then again, its a low res image.

Always good to restore in functional sequence.  So, this rusted ass gas tank needs to be cleaned out, unless its future owner wants to be cleaning out clogged petcocks and carburetors on the regular.  For those not familiar, note that the gas tank on a maxi IS the frame - this is where the challenge lies.  Any mopeder will attest to the cheap, reliable, tried and true acid bake method.  For details, see Philips post on his blog, I really cant say it any better.  Carried out thusly, on a front porch in upstate winter -

try not to make a mess.  luckily, baking soda can’t touch a well cared-for shop vac.  Note that my late notices for national grid and time warner are lying SAFELY UNDER THE muriatic acid.  You really need that little hose clamp to keep your tubing sealed.

Filled to the brim with fresh gas to keep the rust from coming back, a new petcock on, and a nice chrome locking gas cap to keep the neighborhood kids out.

After this, a little steel wool and oven cleaner on the chrome components of the ped: spoke rims, bike rack, handlebars, fenders.

Ugly surface rust

A much more sparkly wheel!

Next, I’ve got some nice new tires, chain, and long seat to put on.  Not sure if I’ll need to use a new throttle and clutch lever, but if I do, I’ve actually got spares right now.  Sooner or later I’ll have to get into that engine and see what I can do with the seized piston.  I’ve been meaning to rebuild this one stock, but if that seized cylinder is no good, I’ve got an unused 70cc treats kit just waiting to be used.  Probably not a good idea to sell a kitted ped to someone with no tuning experience though.

A few weeks ago I got a call informing me that I passed my field investigator exam for MUFON (Mutual UFO Network).  For those not in the know, it’s a world-wide organization with deep roots and support/membership of some legendary figures in ufology..basically a wide network of people investigating reports on ufo phenomena..it tends to shy away from the more frivolous conspiracy theories - not that those are a bad thing necessarily - and has a formidable database of cases to support any such speculations.

I met on Saturday with the the MUFON director whom I’ll be working under and  one other investigator in the Albany region - both intelligent and strong-willed people - we met in converted office space on the side of a house, filled with literature, videos, and other media, and exchanged a large amount of information  Everything from the Maury Island incident to the activity in the Hudson Valley (a little closer to home in time and space).  In short I’m honored and excited to be working with these guys.

I’ll begin my work by helping to clean up some open cases concerning historical incidents - one going back as far as the seventies.  I’m damn excited about getting in the door of this community finally, and hopefully will have plenty to share - individual cases will be very unlikely, as keeping anonymity is of profound import in the organization; and rightly so.

I will say that I saw what is probably the most incredible pieces of UFO video footage as of yet in my life - and filmed less than an hour from here.  As I understand, it will be available to the public sometime in the future.