We all know that every good team has a Mascot. Blue Peter actually had numerous Mascots, Kellogg’s have a Tiger and McDonalds have a scary Clown. So we thought what could we at Handisc really do with? Well after a mad moment on Ebay we seem to have ended up with a mighty beast. It’s called a Habana Mojito. It’s 50cc of raw scooter power and if we ever get it working again it will fly the Handisc flag.
Sadly when we bought it the guy told us there had been one careful owner. Truth is there had actually been 10 idiots including a big fan of “No More Nails” and Gaffer tape. Anyway, we have ourselves a project / challenge. We will get this beast back on the road and ready for the commute to work. Once the weather improves of course.
Hannah Habana (as it’s been named) is a non runner with more issues than the Radio Times. Upon collection of the bike we found out it came with a second engine. Straight away this means the guy I’m buying from is a tinker man. We now know that everything needs to be stripped and checked. Even though it only does about 30mph downhill we still don’t want to be on it when something falls off or gives out.
On our first night we gave up on the first engine as it had zero compression and thought we would try the second engine. After four hours of cuts, scrapes and some colourful language we realised that this engine was as bad if not worse than the first and would need to be stripped. At this moment we called it a night and you can see from the pic below that Hannah Habana is looking a little light on the rear.
I know this is a little different to what we usually write about but we thought it might be fun to let you all know about some of the things we get up to. We’ll keep this blog updated with our progress as I’m sure you’re all dying to know what happens next.
Thanks
Hannah Habana
Part 2: Once we stripped the engine it turned out we needed to replace the Piston, Piston Rings and Barrel as these seemed to be almost welded together. After buying/fitting these we had a evening of remembering how to screw it back together but then we were up and running. The bike was happily going up and down the drive so it was time to get legal (Insurance and so on) so we could get it on the road. We did this and Thursday 11th Nov 2010 was our maiden voyage.
We rushed home from the office with my insurance docs and so on all complete. It was a cold, dark night but I wasn’t going to let anything stop me. Wearing about 4 layers I got the bike out and ready to roll. Did a final lights and brake check and then we were off. I pulled from the drive and opened up the throttle. The bike leapt into life and for almost 10 seconds was happily running down the road. At about 10 seconds it died and I coasted to the side of the road. You would be surprised how far you can get down a hill in 10 seconds as the push back was not fun. Especially with the 4 layers of clothing I had put on.
So the current state is that we think there is a fuel flow problem and it’s a case of taking it apart again to find out why. Not the best start but we will get there. Or I’ll become very fit trying.
Part 3: Well we resolved the fuel issue and got her running. Or we thought we had her running. After about 6 miles of happy scooting we stopped at a small village to talk about what a great job we had done and that the bike was running so well. At that moment the bike stopped and sadly that was the last time it would run. There was still some hidden issue inside the engine and this time I think we had managed to kill it. It had obviously got too hot and seized.
We gave up with that engine and got back on Ebay. We picked up a “running” engine that needed a little love but it was in a much better state than what we had started with. It has taken us a little while to get this fitted but with the snow and cold weather it really wasn’t a job we were looking forward to.
It’s January the 17th now and the bike is in pieces but the new engine is in and it does run. All should be complete by the weekend and weather allowing, we should hopefully go for a spin. I’ll let you know how we get on.
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