Introduction with a "new" bike

[Eomund]

Hey all. Stumbled across an MZ on Craigslist today and I couldn't say no for the price.







The Imgur link if you want: https://imgur.com/gallery/UiBT6B0

She runs but not fantastic. That is the easy part. Some of the electrical seems a little messed up too. Also shouldn't be too hard. The fact that it's complete more than makes up for it.

[Puffs]

Welcome and enjoy your TS150! It may take some time before you can ride it, but that gives you time to polish & fix her up. You'd be surprised what a bit of TLC to the ignition can do (and maybe the carb too).

One minor correction (wrt Imgur): MZ won the ISDE 7 times; also in '87.

[Blurredman]

Pretty awesome! what a find

I hope you will have fun with your fettling..




How come all these American found MZ's are so... prestine and unused!?!?!?

[Puffs]

Yes it looks good & that's an interesting observation. Dry Californian climate? No salty roads in winter time?

[Eomund]

It's more than that. I'm noticing in my stupid amounts of research. They have no miles too. This bike only has 5000 miles on it. And that's high compared to others. I mean. I put 20000 miles on a vespa in a year
For some reason people aren't riding them.

I'm gonna clean the carb today. I'm getting a new chair for my office. So I may not get into the ignition until tomorrow. But I hope I'll ar least look at it today. Magneto ignition are fun to work on. I'm pretty sure the carb is clogged tho. Why I'm doing that first.

I also wanna drain the fuel and start from scratch. I have no idea how old this gas is.

[Puffs]

20k mi on a Vespa?? Ein eigenartiges Vergnügen.

Make sure not to forget mix oil in the fuel. But I think I saw a YZ too, so I don't think you would.

[Eomund]

Ya. 20k in a bit over a year. And ya I know it needs premix. Gonna have to work a fuel system out

[AlanJ]

Hi Eomund,
Sorry I am a bit late in seeing your post, just a thought, as you are taking the carb off and as you said it was not running that well, could it be that the main seals may need replacing. they do get hard through the years and as you have the carb off rest a piece of tissue paper over the manifold opening turn her over and if the tissue pulls onto the manifold then all is ok. You might well know of this, but just in case.
Safe riding when she is up and running, take care Alan.

[Eomund]

Hi Eomund,
Sorry I am a bit late in seeing your post, just a thought, as you are taking the carb off and as you said it was not running that well, could it be that the main seals may need replacing. they do get hard through the years and as you have the carb off rest a piece of tissue paper over the manifold opening turn her over and if the tissue pulls onto the manifold then all is ok. You might well know of this, but just in case.
Safe riding when she is up and running, take care Alan.

I'm a bit confused by this. It's issue is electrical. Basically the spark isn't keeping up. I'm replacing the wire and cap, and for good measure I have a new coil coming as those go bad sometimes too. Overall she runs fantastic. It's when she gets warmed up, the spark isn't working as well. And the plug wire is craaaaaaaaap. I'm honestly stunned it works with how bad of shape it's in. I have the parts coming and she will be premo.

[Blurredman]

Hi Eomund,
Sorry I am a bit late in seeing your post, just a thought, as you are taking the carb off and as you said it was not running that well, could it be that the main seals may need replacing. they do get hard through the years and as you have the carb off rest a piece of tissue paper over the manifold opening turn her over and if the tissue pulls onto the manifold then all is ok. You might well know of this, but just in case.
Safe riding when she is up and running, take care Alan.

I'm a bit confused by this. It's issue is electrical. Basically the spark isn't keeping up. I'm replacing the wire and cap, and for good measure I have a new coil coming as those go bad sometimes too. Overall she runs fantastic. It's when she gets warmed up, the spark isn't working as well. And the plug wire is craaaaaaaaap. I'm honestly stunned it works with how bad of shape it's in. I have the parts coming and she will be premo.

Ah yes, didn't know that was your issue. Spark disapearing or getting weak enough to cause issues running does seem like coil failure- Was it hot to the touch when it started breaking down? Good and simple test obviously.. Some can get extremely hot..

I recall when I had a coil break down I was tracing it for months because it did take a few miles (and traffic/city miles too..) before the bike would stall out.
But on my testing (after work) I would ride into the country and it is often fairly cold.. It never broke down because a) it was cold weather and b) I was constantly on the move as no traffic..

Alas I purchased a 'new' coil, which was even worse than the first. It would start misfiring badly after a few miles too.. Some reproduction MZ stuff just cannot be trusted! It led me down the wrong path then and also depleated a battery (albeit a 5ah few years old one). Until I swapped the coil with one from my other MZ.. No issues from then on (with spark anyway)..

Anyway.. I have two original ddr rectifiers, two mechanical regulators and a good spare coil on the shelf ready for diagnosis.. I hate the process of dismantling one bike to fix the other.. It helps that both the bikes are 12v

[Eomund]

I found a brand new 6v coil on amazon.its enclosed so not easy to get to haha.for now im just doing maintenance stuff.