Silly boy - Linhai Aeolus 300 crashed By mezzer (Read 2,194 times)

[mezzer]

Hi all, I'm a new member here and new to scooters neverlone motorbikes. I've had my Linhai for around a month and much to my wife's dissatisfaction (tears, scolding, and general "I told you so" looks) I managed to crash it. I'm a bit banged up, road rash here, bruises there, but all in all I can't complain. There's cosmetic damage to the scoot which looks like most can be pretty easily replaced, even by someone of my limited mechanical skills, but the handlebars are slightly off true. I had to ride my bike back home after my "adventure" and the wheel is stable, so I'm thinking that the likelihood is that the forks are bent, or can the handlebars themselves be bent (?). Can anyone provide a suggestion on how I can look at the forks to see if they're damaged or if its the handle bars (or both?).

Thanks much in advance.

[JR]

First of all welcome to the forum. Can you post some pictures of the areas that you are concerned about being bent?

Also here is a breakdown of the forks and each part of the fork assembly can be replaced;

.partsyahoo.com/Linhai-Aeolus-300cc-Main-Street-Scooter-Steeromg-s/3554.htm" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">.partsyahoo.com/Linhai-Aeolus-300cc-Main-Street-Scooter-Steeromg-s/3554.htm

Yes one could bend the handlebars and what I wouild do is line up the wheel inline with the body of the scooter and then take note the position of the handle bars.

JR

[mezzer]

Thanks JR I'll upload some pics tomorrow. The front of the bike looks pretty grim, Looks like I'm going to have to replace most of the black and colored plastic. Thanks for the link to partsyahoo, I've looked at them a lot over the last couple of days. Can anyone recommend them as a supplier?

[mezzer]

Aug 13, 2012 21:27:26 GMT -6 JR said:

Can you post some pictures of the areas that you are concerned about being bent?

JR I don't have enough exposed to take a picture, at least so far, what I can see is that the handlebars may be slightly deformed but it looks pretty negligible, what I do see is that when the front wheel is straight that the area holding the handlebars in pace seems to be 10-15 degrees to the right rather than straight. From what I can see of the bottom of the forks nothing is clearly bent but of course its extremely hard to be sure. I've got around $500 of bodywork damage to repair and my concern is that if the whole steering unit needs replacing that's another $350, which I could swallow at a push, but I suppose what I'm really worried about is whether I've damaged the frame itself and the bike needs to be totaled.

[mezzer]

OK, I've finally got the MOLE1 of the front and the damage is kind of staring you in the face, the stay is toast for a starter. Hard to tell what else is going on just yet. Getting very worried now that the frame is damaged.

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[mezzer]

Finally disassembled the whole of the front and I'm now cautiously optimistic that the scoot is salvageable. The frame does appear to be damaged, hoever it seems to be contained to the horizontal bar that the horns sit. It looks like with a bit of elbow grease I will be able to manually straighten it. As previously identified the stay will definitely need to be replaced. From a steering perspective there seems to be good news and not so good news. The handlebars and horizontal part of the forks seem to line up OK. The forks themselves and the tire appear to be well out of alignment. Its hard to tell if one fork is damages, both forks are damaged, the wheel is damaged, or any combination of the above. Worst case I can replace the lot but my pocket money is going to dry up soon.

As I've had to disassemble pretty much all the front, can anybody make some recommendations of customisations/modifications that would be worth doing? I've seen some references to changing the headlight bulbs etc. and wondered if there was anything else similar that might be of interest. Finally, if I do have to replace the wheel, any suggestions on a good replacement at a reasonable price?

Thanks

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[mezzer]

Showing the bent bar and the wheel/forks off-kilter.

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[mezzer]

The bent bar from another angle.

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[damin69]

wow that is not looking good.

[mezzer]

Steady progress, bent bar is now straight bar! Some work to do when I replace the stay, there seem to be a number of cables etc threaded through it, plus the stay has a small weld on it to attach it to the frame further to the three screws.

tried looking at the forks a bit more today, looks like there's the possibility of only one of the forks being damaged but it shard to tell. Anyone have any experience of removing the forks from a Linhai? I'd appreciate any thoughts.

Cheers

[damin69]

Aug 26, 2012 16:06:50 GMT -6 mezzer said:

Steady progress, bent bar is now straight bar! Some work to do when I replace the stay, there seem to be a number of cables etc threaded through it, plus the stay has a small weld on it to attach it to the frame further to the three screws.

tried looking at the forks a bit more today, looks like there's the possibility of only one of the forks being damaged but it shard to tell. Anyone have any experience of removing the forks from a Linhai? I'd appreciate any thoughts.

Cheers

Not the fork but the triple tree. Taking the triple off is easy getting the races out to replace the bearings that is HARD AS HECK.

[mezzer]

Finally got some time to take the front wheel off at the weekend, wheel and axle look fine, I was secretly hoping the forks would immediately straighten but nope. One of the mechanics at the scooter place I go to suggested that it could be just the tree bent and that the forks themselves are fine, but looking at the list of parts at partsyahoo I can't see the price of just the triple tree, anyone had any joy in replacing just that part?

First batch of replacement parts arrived today, woohoo! Plenty more to come though, doh!

Thanks

[mezzer]

Aug 26, 2012 16:06:50 GMT -6 mezzer said:

... plus the stay has a small weld on it to attach it to the frame further to the three screws.

Actually the stay doesn't have a weld on it, it just screws straight on, so one less thing to worry about!

[linhai300]

whether a scooter or not insurance is the way to go these days

[mezzer]

I defintely agree. Only problem is that Allstate said that parts weren't covered as "Linhai parts are hard to get". Does anyone have a good insurer that they get decent (e.g. comprehensive) cover at a reasonable price?