I'm back, with a new Toy- Yamaha Champ

[huckersteve]

SO I know I haven't posted in ages, I sort of liquidated our little Tote Gote collection a while back and have been concentrating on other bikes (mopeds, nopeds, and motorcycles) but yesterday I came into a bike that firmly belongs here with my friends on Old Mini Bikes. Here we go:

Yesterday I stumbled upon a 1976 Yamaha Champ over at my friend's house- Paul is my big bike mechanic and I stopped by to shoot the breeze with him and ended up leaving with the Champ, which belonged to another neighbor and fellow incurable bike collector, Ben. The price was $40. The bike has a lot of personality, and an equal number of problems (shocker!) but none of that deters me as this little guy is cute as can be, speaks right to me with it's shape, size, and implied capabilities.

I need your help in digging up relevant info on specs, and available parts for these bikes. Here's what I know so far:

From the moped army wiki:

-It's a 2 speed centrifugal clutch bike
-72cc's, oil injected 2 stroke, 4 petal reeds
-Yamaha made it for one year only
-it's related in name at least to the slightly more common 50cc Chappy

My questions for this group:

-What other Yamaha bikes might this thing share bore, stroke, or other key characteristics with? This of course for figuring out what cylinders I might be able to run on it when it's rebuilt.

-Where can I find a manual online for this little fella, maybe as a PDF?

-Who's got one here on OldMiniBikes? (Somebody does I'm sure)

- Any other facts, stories, myths, or info about these bikes would be awesome.

Thanks as always for the help my friends!

in the background above, my Honda NU50M "Runaway"

Tres Custom Ooh La la!

Thanks again my friends, I know I'll get wonderful information from this group. NIce to have a reason to visit finally.

 

[buckeye]

Welcome back. Boy does that thing speak throwback. haven't seen one of those in years.
Can't help ya though.
That other bike is the coolest moped or whatever it is called, I have ever seen. We don't have stuff like that here. Maybe in tens years.
They still wearing mullets here.:laugh:

 

[jesse8931]

I miss my chappy

 

[huckersteve]

Come on guys, I know somebody around here is a Champ Guru... Help a fellow minibike lover out. Buckeye- thanks man the Runaway is a lot of fun and has been a lot of work, but it's a blast now. It started life as a normal Honda Urban Express Noped. Did about 23mph wide open. I've clocked 55 on it now on several occasions, and It'll cruise at 45 all day long and gobbles up hills around here in Seattle like a respectable bike should. But back on topic- I need MOAR INFO PLEASE on my Champ!

 

[paul_probus]

After seeing yours, I did some searching on the web. They do not appear to be anywhere near as popular as the CT70 Hondas. Not saying there is not an expert on here, but looks like there will be fewer said gurus for the Champ than the Hondas. I believe it was Suzuki that had a similar styled trail bike.

I am not sure if it was the Suzuki or the Champ that was the inspiration, but mytrailbuddy.com was selling a replica that looked similar to your Champ, but it looks like they sold out of them, now. Their replica was based around the CT70 clone parts (which is why I would not call the MTB version a "clone"), the only real difference between the replica Suzuki or Champ and the CT70 clone was the frame and tire size (wider tires).

Edit: Forgot to mention that I like the Suzuki and your Champ better than the CT70's. They appear to be heavier built, but looks may be decieving as the CT70's appear to have survived quite well despite appearing to be less robust.

Paul

 

[125ccCrazy]

I used to have a Yamaha 80 champ back about 1980.... that was a fun little bike, wish I still had it...

Your's will make a nice resto project.....it looks pretty clean....:thumbsup:

 

[70sVintageTrikes]

I got a Yamaha Champ. Mine is complete other than Headlight and front Fender.

 

[wayne]

Here's my 81 champ tri-wheel.

 

[wayne]

it uses a try-zinger rear end,so it has a drive shaft insted of a chain.:smile:

 

[Randy]

I like that!

 

[wayne]

how do you get your photos loke that ?

 

[jeep2003]

yea the 80s type wayne and I have with the 50cc shaft drive engine is definatly a different engine than the champ you have with the chain drive looks just like the chappy engine

 

[huckersteve]

Wow cool Chappy's guys! The trike is crazy. Yeah I'm working on sorting out what other Yamahas (Yzinger or PW80, or older trial bike) might be partly or completely compatible top end wise with mine, It seems that the bore and stroke of my engine might be a little longer than the Chappy. Trying to get a final answer on that here soon. I like this Champ a lot simply based on the fact that it is more uncommon than the CT70's- not that I would have turned one of them down either! I'll take my time with this but we will have it riding again sooner rather than later. Now the question is how exactly to build it back up? I think I will do a bit of an update on the shocks and forks, depending on what I can find I might opt for a more modern pit bike style front end and some higher quality rear shocks. We'll see whether I can adapt the forks to accept the stock wheel or not, and I might even have a friend of mine fab up a braced rear swingarm with a modified shock mount location to raise u the rear end a tiny bit more. The frame and paint I'll leave alone so it's recognizable as what it always was, and the engine etc will just get the love and tuning any old two stroke like this deserves. The 15mm mikuni will go by bye in favor of a VM21 or similar carb, I'll upgrade the reedblock to a 6 or 8 petal unit from Gilardoni etc, carbon reeds of course, and I'd like to adapt a tuned expansion chamber pipe to the bike and route it up higher for ground clearance as well. I've seen one other Champ done in similar style although they did not do the suspension and fork stuff I'm considering, but the pipe looked awesome on it and the owner (In Bellingham WA actually) reported over 60mph out of his rebuilt Champ. I'd like to shoot for a reliabl 55-60mph tune as well and with this powerplant I think that's possible. I might need an overbore cylinder and to do a little head work as well to get there, but no problem on that front, once I get the final word on bore/stroke that will come together no problem. If I can't source the OG headlamp from Ebay easily, I'll look into fabbing something custom for it like a Diampndplate number plate with a hole cut in it for an older style 4" sealed beam bulb and make a custom bucket for it to mount on the stock arms. We'll worry about that part when we get to it. I need to drop the motor and pull it apart, as I think the lower conrod bearings are shot. Will probably have to do my first full bottom end rebuild on this bike but I guess that had to happen sometime..

Keep the tidbits coming though boys and girls, thanks!

 

[markus]

smallbikes has or had one, He had some info for them when I was looking at one a couple of years ago. They are neat, They only made them for a short time I wanna say later '70's 76-77 or something like that? probably about the time trail bikes like that were losing ground in the market.

 

[huckersteve]

how do you get your photos loke that ?

Wayne if you're asking me that question- I host my pics first on photobucket.com and use the links from their site in my forum posts. I guess it might afford a higher res image to click if the viewer wants vs. just attaching the file int the post directly. Not sure but there are many ways to skin that particular cat, so check them out but they are by no means the only image hosting service around, most probably have similar properties.