Originally Posted by big john

I was riding in the desert with friends on my Maico 490 when the mainshaft in the transmission seized up and pushed the clutch out through the side cover. Came to an abrupt halt. We were close to a dirt road so they were able to get the truck and pick me up. We had to take the chain off to roll it onto the truck.

I read later that there was an internal power struggle in the Maico factory and one of the family members had sabotaged the transmission heat-treating process.