1985 Spree / Powered by Yamaha Jog

[rakfint]

Hi all,

New to the forum as I recently picked up my first Honda Spree. I have owned a 91 Honda Giorno & an 03 Honda Ruckus in the past, but so far - loving the Spree more than both of those!

[rakfint]

After having it about a week and riding it less than a handful of times I started reading up on why this scooter was so slow as both of my previous scooters did 50-70 (one 2stroke, one 4 and both 49cc)

I quickly learned that performance from the poor stock engine is pretty limited but wasn't ready to give up on the Spree, it was just so retro looking and so so tiny, I wanted to make it faster without spending a million dollars doing so.

I searched the local craigslist to see what scooter parts I could find, and came across a '93 Yamaha Jog swingarm setup. After some googeling read that they are good for 70-80kmph.. sold.

[rakfint]

Of course we had quite a few hurdles to overcome.. the horizontal format of the Jog engine VS the vertical of the Spree.. the top mount position of the new engine VS the bottom of the Spree.

Oh and of course, quite the physical size difference. Let the mockup and fabrication begin.


Size comparison.. Spree (Left) Jog (Right)


On the bench trying to get a rough idea of how much of a stretch will be needed and how much of my factory plastics I'll need to hack away (I was trying my hardest to not cut away too much, I wanted this thing to look pretty stock)


While we were doing this, of course it made sense to lower the front a little so we could match up the rear as we go.

[rakfint]

Once we had a rough idea of where we needed / wanted it to sit we had a few other things to consider with making up mounts.

- We need the mounts to pivot
- We need the mounts to allow the engine to be removable for if / when work needs to be done

Keep in mind, neither myself or my buddy helping me have done much work on bikes or scooters, so this was a really big learning curve for us.

Here is what we came up with. A 2 piece pivoting and independently removable mount pins that use the factory mount holes of the Jog. Luckily we have a buddy that works a machine shop, he came in VERY handy during this trial and error process.


You can clearly see the new shiney parts we had made up for our vision to work.


And here is what we'd do to mount it to the frame itself. With a hollowed out tube/bearing type setup allowing it to pivot from the top.

[rakfint]

After some more trial and error and making up some vertical arms we were thinking this may just work.




Threw down some ugly booger welds to hold it in place and see if our backyard engineering had worked


For now, the shock would stay wedged on one of the case bumps which allowed me to do my first load test.. sadly, we found that our machined pivots, although bolted in, were actually still moving slightly under load which mean we essentially had a top AND bottom pivot, which of course lead to the engine moving in ways we didn't want it do.

Back to the drawing board.

[rakfint]

We decided to trial a pin through both the outter casing of the mount and the newly machined inserts, that way the pins would lock it and stop pivoting from the motor side, allowing it to just swing from the frame.



While we were at it we came up with this elaborate shock mount system. The plan is to pre-drill a few different holes for different riding positions... we'll see.

[rakfint]

Now, seems to be pivoting correctly.. engine mounts & shock mounts are good, time for my first test ride.


I got two exhausts with the Jog setup but both are rough, the stock one is so rough its unusable (holes aplenty)


So I decided to go with this one... (can anyone tell me what it is.. is it MEANT to have the loop back on top? and just doesn't anymore?)

[rakfint]

Now that i'm getting closer to it being rideable I decided i'll start working on making it pretty.

Gone with a satin red & gloss black theme..

[rakfint]

While waiting for a lot of paint to cure & some new jets to arrive in the mail I have started thinking ahead about the gap I will be left with between the two plastic sides, above the rear wheel where the fender / license plate mount & tail light mount used to sit.

No way it will fit back on now with the lower ride height/stretch & bigger wheel.

Using cardboard & duct tape I made up the lil tail on the rear as a mockup.

thoughts?

[rakfint]

Made some more progress.




Picked up a generic bicycle kick stand (adjustable too) Needed some modification to get it to work (mostly shortening) but seems to do the job.




Started making my rear fender / spoiler / duckbill thing out of sheet metal..




Finished painting all of the plastics so put it mostly back together for some photos.

Stripped it all off again to finish off the exhaust mount.

[Wheelman-111]

Greetings:

Nicely done repurposed Spree, albeit with the bowed-down Horizontal Yamaha engine. I guess even Honda-san abandoned the Vertical Cylinder Righteousness in later versions of their 2-Strokes so...

I likes me some Beefy engine mounts, and you've gone over the top in that department. But why not weld those vertical slats to the steel block you installed under the frame spar? I dunno (mostly 'cuz I didn't pay attention in Geometry class) but it seems like that engine could still move a hair fore-and-aft on the upper bolt center. Think about a wheelie and you'll see what I mean. If there was a shock on the right side I'd worry less, but if that engine shifts a few mm it might rotate aport on the yaw axis, just a bit. Might make for some interesting handling issues setting the nose down again? Maybe I worry too much.

I also like how you preserved as much plastic as possible for that stock-ish Sleeper look. I'll bet it doesn't SOUND like a sleeper unless there's a silencer for that chamber, though. I suggest hearing protection if not. Finally, nice job taking the time to address cosmetics along with all that engineerin'. Motor looks so much better in Basic Black.

Well done!!

BTW, what's that bug-eyed car next to the Family Saloon?

[rakfint]

Thanks for the kind words...

The upper bolt is actually a pivot point. The mount system from factory on all these scoots seem to allow the engine to pivot as weight is applied to the suspension. Originally we made it double pivoting (from top and bottom) but realised thats no good at all, so we put pins in the bottom (engine side mounts) so that they no longer move at all, but the top needs to, without that you would be bending the frame each time you sit on it as the shock would compress but the front would not. Not sure if i`m explaining this correctly.

One thing I really wanted more than anything is to keep this swap looking like it was factory as much as possible. It is quite loud though yes.. This exhaust came in a parts bin with the engine so even though its huge and kind of ugly I decided to run with it to keep costs down

The car in the background is my work project promo car, its a 1989 Nissan Scargo

[Wheelman-111]

Greetings:

Ah, I now see the welds where those giant pins mount at the engine. So it pivots at the frame/top end of those vertical slats? Handles OK?

Cool Trucklet. Escargot, Uhh, huh-huh. I get it! On accounta the snailishness. I want one. Dunno why.

[rakfint]

Yep, pivots on top. Seems to handle okay. I haven`t really ridden it a whole lot yet, but we are definitely learning as we go haha

Yeah, clever play on words I think.

Nissan released a few models in 1989 all retro inspired.. all small little engines and all limited it numbers. There was only ever 10,000 Scargo`s made and now have been shipped all around the world and now are quite old, so you can imagine there`s not too many on the roads these days.

[Downsouthdio]

Nice job man! If that is the stock carb..i would run the stock airbox over the open filter.or have you jetted the carb? Those motors stock setups hit around 45-53mph approx.