In June 2006 an eBay auction offered a CH125 "engine" for a "Buy it now" price of $180. The auction's photo showed a complete rear-end assembly: Engine, drive and wheel. An e-mail to the seller (in far-off Los Angeles) confirmed that he was indeed selling the entire assembly.

I clicked "Buy Now" and after some problems with FedEx's shipping system (they couldn't find us and returned the thing to L.A.!) we received the stuff , all 77 pounds of it, on June 20, 2006.

There's the box -- as you see, there was some lubricant left in the engine before shipping! Fortunately the doubled box and packing absorbed most of it, so the garage floor didn't have to be steam-cleaned.

Since the rear wheel on my Elite was bent, I was particularly interested in getting this one. When unpacked, I was surprised to see the worn-out tire -- I don't think I've ever before seen a scooter with a bald tire.

The wheel looked okay, so it was dismounted and taken to "Chattanooga Motorcycles" to replace mine while they were working on the scooter.

I'm happy to say that, with a new tire mounted, this resolved the slight "low-speed-wobble" I had been feeling in the scooter.

The engine hasn't yet been inspected or tested, but considering the condition of that tire and the amount of carbon on the exhaust side of the block, it's a fair bet that it has many more miles on it than my current engine.

The drive train must be inspected too; the belt, clutch pads, variator and weights, and more; all valuable spares.

Now; where the heck am I going to put all these parts so that I can find them if I ever need them?