Jialing 2004 NP50-GL, Chinese 50cc moped

While I was at the shop, I saw this outside looking destroyed and sad. No fuel line or chain, electric wires hanging out like guts and brains. I asked about it, and one person told me it was trash.

The more I inquired the more that I had found out that it was the garage's and everyone rode it to shit by doing wheelies and jumps all day long. Poor thing had a hard life.

I don't know why but I fell in love with it. I was never an actual fan of mopeds, I thought they were dumb. I think a lot of them looked lame. But this little girl actually sorta looked like a small moto. I was determined.

Playing with it even though it wasn't running

I played with it a bunch. Pushed it up the hill in the parking lot and coasted down hill, pushed it back up, and again. Then we got a chain and a fuel line for it... Cleaned and rebuilt the carb... We got it to run at first but then a part of the engine broke from its crashes previously. We managed to basically superglue the broken pieces together but it was working very poorly. There had happened to be a rip off of a 125cc Honda motor that fit perfectly in it...

Yep. Engine swap. Also it shifted normally with the new engine (the older engine was four gears, shifting downward to go up a gear, and upward to shift back to neutral, it was weird).

Got it running and then took it apart. Ha.

More than twice as fast, it was closer to being a whole bike again. I sat through a whole day, figuring out which wiring was which so I can label them and have them ready to wire all of the lights (all of the lights were broken or gone). I had figured out all the wiring but one. The wiring was so old and corroded--I could not even with help for the life of me find the high beam light wire. I just gutted the whole thing to be rewired fresh and from scratch with new wires.

Also started to take apart the bike to cut and grind off pieces that are no longer needed. And spent a weeks worth of time sanding down individual parts after a late night of disassembling it completely.

It had cheap paint with red underneath the black when I was stripping the decals and trying to razor off the adhesive.

Sanded the tank down. It looks like a cool poisonous snake or frog.

After the weeks worth of sanding, I was taught how to take off the tires with their tire machine. Neat thing. I ordered knobby cheap Shinko tires.

Oh and we found some old clubman handlebars--except I'm not going to have them sit low like cafe bars. I like how high the handlebars are. I just like the curve and points.

Tryna paint the shields on the pipes black and adding insulation inside/behind the shields.

So the idea is that it will be mostly black with accents of yellow paint. The tank will have a "22" typography graphic on one side and I'm thinking of hanging yellow feathers from a ring sitting on the gas cap on the other side. Ordering shorter shocks that has yellow accents on it as well.

Also using another find, neat high pipes. Will be painting it and insulting it some more too.

Don't make fun of my drawing. I tried. :)

Trying not to have too much on the bike. Will be taking the existing seat and cutting off a lot of the foam and making it a thinner seat. The existing seat doesn't create a straight line on the bottom with the tank because the back part rises slightly to fit above where the shocks are mounted. I'm going to try to shorten where the seat is before that "rise" and make that back part a rack.

I will either find some simple and minimal LED lights for the tail, signals (integrated hopefully), and headlight(s). I kind of want to use the halo LED light with a combination of a smaller headlight sitting/floating inside of it (versus how halo LEDs are normally a trim around the headlight). Also new controls because the original ones are janky. I will find all of these electronic parts after painting and building the bike back later.

I've thought about adding a skateboard rack or something. Will wait on that for last. I did leave these tabs under the seat that I might add hooks or loops.

I still have a long way to go but I also got a lot done. I'm excited for this bike. I think a lot of people think it's silly that I'm putting this much effort into this junk bike. I fell in love with it and will make it a rad city bike to Braap here and there with.

Also to go with my wild kigurumi biltwell helmet.

Next is priming all the parts. I will

post again after some progress.

Thanks for reading. If there any ideas, tips, or feedback. I'm more than happy to hear from any of you!

xo. Attì