Rebuilt a Carburetor

I have a 1995 Tomos Targa moped (like the one at the left, only mine is white with burgundy bits) that Kris bought me many years ago. I drove it work regularly for a while, then after I moved further away from work I parked it in the garden shed and have ignored it for more than a few years.

With gas prices hovering around $3 a gallon I got motivated to find a more economical way to get to work, so (with the prompting from Susie) it was time to revive the moped. I dug it out of the shed, washed the grime off, and started figuring out the mechanical problems.

I had to destroy the gas cap lock to get it off. It, and the inside top of the tank was pretty badly rusted. The 5 year old gas was the color of Coke. The carb was in as bad a shape as the tank. What gas was there had dried up over time and gummed up the works pretty severely. After a few hours of carb cleaner, lacquer thinner, acetone and elbow grease the carb is all clean and clear.

This is sort of a first - I've never redone a carburetor before and, despite me being paranoid about permanently breaking things, it went surprisingly well. Of course I don't know if it runs yet - time will tell after I get all the other stuff going - but I took on something that I had doubts about doing and did a pretty decent job at doing it.

Next projects on the moped are to acid etch the tank rust, and free up the reverse-kick starter. The gearbox oil is probably going to need changing too. This all wouldn't have been necessary if I'd either drained all the gas out before I stored is for such a long time or if I'd just start it and run it every few months.

-Bill