Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Moped History: 1978 Sachs Balboa


It was Sunday, June 14th and my girlfriend and I had decided to
purchase a canoe off of Craigslist. The night before I had emailed a
guy who had posted this 1978 Sachs Balboa in Bridgeport, CT. After
picking up the canoe, strapped to the roof of my Jeep, I got a call
from the guy who had the Balboa. I assumed the seller had already
sold it to someone else. It was mine if I wanted it he said, but he had
gotten over 50 emails; mine was the first. My girlfriend immediately
whipped out a $100 dollar bill and we were off to bridgeport, canoe
and all.

The Sachs was in pretty rough shape. It was apparent that it had been
left outside for some time. The paint had pretty bad sun damage. The
bike also had been dropped and the steering restrictor was bent. Both
tires were flat, the air box was missing, the pedals and pedal arms
missing, the bottom bearing missing, from the steering column. Worst
of all the engine would not turn over. Bonus, the bike came with an
original Vespa Ciao long seat in really great condition. We took the
bike figuring we could part it out if worst came to worst.

The worst of my fears were quelled after opening the 505-1A engine
case to discover that the engine was not seized. After replacing the
tires, tubes, bulbs, air filter, carb gaskets, condensor, engine gaskets
and seals I had a running Sachs.

The above photos were taken on the one day I had the Balboa running.
Immediately after idling the engine began to leak transmission fluid
from the decompression cable input. My guess is that I did a lousy job
sealing the halves of the engine case together, causing the seal to
break and the fluid to leak out. I probably also over-filled the
transmisson fluid. I also ran the Sachs without the muffler for a few
minutes to see if the exhaust was restricted, causing the moped to
have poor acceleration. This may have caused the engine to overheat
and compromise the integrity of the engine seals. As of today the
Sachs sits in my father's garage, awaiting a second engine rebuild.
The engine currently does not turn over. My girlfriend is not pleased
about this.

2 comments:

  1. i GOT one of those and its killer. love. it. SWOOPS
    swoops.webs.com

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  2. it seem we are in the same boat I found as 1975 sach in the same shape I'v done a full over hall from the paint job to the engine but when I went to tern it over it started to leek gas I thought it could be the carb seal but I'm not to shore anymore

    GOOD LUCK!!

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