Category: Argentina

That was it. I had had enough. While changing gears on my bike it kept jumping out, the clutch kept slipping, the thing was really hard to start, the brakes were dangerous because they simply did not stop the bike, and it really lacked in power. Phew. Lots of problems.

A long stretch of road in Argentina.

I loved the bike but these things were starting to get to me and I knew that if I was going to start riding it some long distances then they would cause even more problems. Argentina has some very long stretches of road with nothing in between. If I broke down on one of those stretches then it would be a long long way to walk to get help.

Mr. Verdun’s Report
That was the point that I decided it would be better to get the help of an expert. So I took my bike down to Mr. Verdun who is an expert in Siambretta motorbikes. At something around seventy years of age, he has been working on these bikes since they started selling them in Argentina back in the 50’s. In one of his comments, he shared that he was even one of the official Inocenti mechanics for their Siambretta range of bikes. Since then he has never stopped working on them, and his yard shows the years of collected bikes, frames and other bits and pieces.

Part of the graveyard at the house of Mr. Verdun.

A man the likes of Mr. Verdun would soon be able to sort out all of the things wrong with my bike and get it up and running again in good condition. So it did not surprise me when I took the bike down to him that he started to identify areas that would need to be looked at. We dug around in various parts of the bike, and chatted about different areas that needed help. At the end of our chat he climbed aboard and rode around the block to check it out. His report was actually quite promising.

There were certain things that we knew had to be repaired on the bike. These were the obvious things, such as the clutch and the brakes. The gears also seemed to need to be replaced too, but after his ride I was told that only 3rd gear had a problem. The lack of power was due to worn rings in the cylinder, and the bike sounded like an chainsaw because of an old exhaust pipe with lots of holes in it.

Mr. Verdun, the Siambretta man.

My newly hired mechanic was now going to pull apart the bike and assess the rest of the problems that may exist inside the gearbox. Things like the chain, gears, bearings, and other areas all needed to be inspected. My task was to return at the end of the day. I did, and by the end of the assessment there was a list of things that needed to be replaced, repaired, or re-manufactured. One of the things that I love about Argentina is that if they do not have it then they can easily make it.

This was my list of things needing fixing:

• Front and rear brakes
• The clutch and clutch basket
• Piston rings
• Exhaust pipe
• Bush for the gear change shaft
• Replace points for electronic ignition

Bits of my bike.

Amazingly the gears were all in good condition and the problems with them was due to the worn bush and somebody putting a gear in the gearbox the wrong way. The chain was also in very good condition and did not need to be changed, however the clutch inner basket was just about to self-explode and destroy everything in the gearbox. The points were no longer available so changing to electronic ignition removed the need to use points, and I have organised to put some side mirrors on the bike too because of the troubles that this causes on the highways without them.

Having Mr. Verdun look over the bike gave me a lot of confidence in knowing that the work would be done well. His experience and understanding of these bikes will ensure that my bike will last the distance when I start on some of my journeys. It will be great to have the bike working well too. The only things left after this work is the shock absorber and a speedometer. Then I will be ready for the road.

My bike disassembled for inspection.

Well, it has been a while now and there has been no news about my Siambretta which went under the surgeon’s knife before the weekend. When I left it at the workshop the indication was that it may take more than a week to fix. There were several things that were dependant on other people to finish and these were the unknown lengths of time.

So being of an inquisitive nature, I wandered back down to Mr Verdun’s place to check up on my bike. When I arrived, there he was in the process of putting the gearbox cover back on the bike. He was happy to see me and told me about many of the repairs that he has already made to the thing, showing me some of his work and explaining other parts of it that I could not directly see.

Mr Verdun sorting through the parts while working on my Siambretta.

With the cylinder head back together and the gearbox, clutch and drive-train assembled, the bike is starting to look almost ready. This was something that Mr Verdun was very quick to dispel, explaining that he still needs to glue the brake pads onto the shoes, fit the electronic ignition, create some parts to get the choke working, and so on. It was quite an extensive list. After giving me this list, he then tells me that it is likely that the bike will be ready in two days. That means Wednesday.

From my conversations with Mr Verdun, he is still a very strong Siambretta enthusiast and loves to see the bikes in good working order. He has been excited by the work I have asked him to perform on my bike and informs me that it will be a completely different motorbike to the one I left with him only a few days before.

Another benefit that has come from asking him to do this work for me is that some parts which I had been told were previously unavailable, are now appearing. It seems that Mr Verdun is eager to see the bike returned to a good state too, so now some of the rare parts that are reserved for good customers are becoming available. I guess that means that I am one of his good customers then.

With a box of parts at his side, Mr Verdun fixes on the gearbox cover.

After a day’s break, I headed back into town to look for some very needed parts on my newly acquired bike. Three things stood out as needing repair soon:

• The clutch, which was slipping and hard to use.
• The rear shock absorber which was now just a bouncy spring.
• The tyres which were completely bald.

Ideally, these sorts of things would be easy to find, but this is not the case for a Siambretta. After visiting my old friend and getting the udpates on where I should go to buy the parts I need, I headed off full of confidence. I had been told earlier than this that a tyre for my bike would cost only $40 pesos and my old friend told me what I could expect to pay for a new shock absorber. Based on these prices I could afford to replace them.

As I approached the shop, sitting quietly on the corner of a busy intersection, opposite the central post office, its narrow doors offered a glimpse into an old, dark, and rather small space. It did not look as grandeur as I have often encountered in spare parts places in Australia, but this was the place I had been told. So I pulled up my bike and strolled inside.

The pungent odor of grease stained wood filled the air of this old shop, an old fan on the wall pushed around the hot and sweaty smells of the group I had just joined as we all crushed into the tiny entrance space in a desperate yet vain attempt to escape the scorching heat of the sun. Being wise to the systems in Argentina, I had grabbed hold of a number ticket in the doorway and so I waited, ticket in hand, enjoying the new and yet familiar smells of this spare parts shop.

Behind the counters the place was packed full of parts. Stickers and fan belts hung from the ceiling while the counters themselves were stuffed full of every type of spare part known in this area. Huge wooden shelving sat behind the counter area and were filled with boxes labelled for what they contained, their bases covered in sprockets and other shiny parts. From what I could tell, there were spare parts here for virtually every motorbike on the roads in Corrientes if not Argentina. The best part was that there were lots of old parts here too. As I noticed this, my hopes rose high again.

When my number was called I started my inquiries. Tyres came nowhere near the $40 pesos I had been told. Instead they were starting from $67 pesos and heading upward from there. Shock absorbers simply do not exist any more, since the manufacturer of these had long since shut down. As the news of this hit me, my hopes took a head-down dive straight for the floor. I was so discouraged by the news of the first two items, that I never bothered asking about the clutch, but instead headed home.

On my way home, I looked around for other places where I could buy a tyre, perhaps with a price nearing the $40 pesos I had been told about. I stopped at any place that seemed likely to sell me that sort of tyre. Not a single person had one. The best I managed to find was some second hand tyres, already mostly used up, which hovered around the price I was looking for. So I returned without anything.

Aftrer heading off with such expectations that I would be able to find the parts I needed, I returned very deflated. Finding parts for my Siambretta is going to be a lot harder than I ever expected.