Modern Vespa

So recently my Dad gave me his 81 Vespa P200E. He hadn't started it since something like 1984 and I remember playing on it in the garage as a kid. He never sold it though, despite never riding it. So finally I asked if I could take it and sure enough he let me have it.

So, my first goal was simply to get this engine to work. All fluids where drained years ago so it was a bit surprising to see such a clean gas tank and carburetor.

got a battery, got a spark plug (B6HS), got gas & 2-stroke oil, got oil for crankcase. I removed the carburetor and cleaned the main stack and slow jets. Reassembled, kicked it a million times and finally it started with the choke full out....but the thing revved its ass off all by itself. It died when I shoved the choke shut so I called it a day. The next day I completely disassembled the carburetor, sprayed out the main casting with carb cleaner, sprayed the jets out including the idle this time, and basically everything else I could think of. Upon reassembly I sealed the carb gaskets using that oil and fuel resistant gasket "goo" and set the fuel mix and idle screws to what was suggested on this website http://vespamaintenance.com/fuel/carbtune/

From there it ran pretty good. A bunch of rides around the block later I had tuned the mixture screw about 2 whole turns out and put the idle screw where it seemed to be happy on a warmed up engine. The plug is light brown so I think I'm on the right track with it. Next I got a floor mat, the rubber ends for the stand, the rubber bellow, tires, tubes, and a clip on mirror. This is where I'm at right now.

In the next few weeks I'm going to put a new rear shock on with new mounts, and it was suggested to me in my other thread to replace fuel and oil lines too. Also, my ignition key and kill switch do nothing to start or stop the engine. I opened the the cover above the headlight and found that the green (ignition?) wire had a decent sized section of rubber that had flaked off. So that needs to be fixed too...
I'm going to use this thread to share this stuff, look for advice, and of course post pictures. Because everyone loves pictures.







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Looks great, enjoy that ride. I think it's cool that it's staying in the family.

She's a beauty. Congrats on your hand me down P.

The green(ground) wire on these are notirious for their crumbling insulation. Most people just run a new one since replacing the whole wiring loom is a pain.

If it will only run with the choke out you might have an air leak some where. Make sure your carb and head are tight and that the exhaust is tight too. Otherwise you might have a blown seal.

Thats's a nice P.. welcome to the club! Sounds like you got rid of an airleak and it's running well! I agree that's that's a nice story, and I'm glad it's staying in your family.. really cool! Astro pointed out the notorious Green wire! You may be able to at least splice in a new section for the crumbling... The green wire sucks..

I hope you keep it up, ride it a lot and keep it on your family down the line...
Happy scooting!

thanks folks. yeah it runs well without the choke. im also using 93 octane now so that may have helped make it run better. theres a tag on the leg shield that says the minimum octane required is 98 but im assuming thats a european equivalent to the u.s. 93?

ill do my best to preserve this scooter for whatever its future holds. It wont be sold.

oh heres that damaged wire. looks like a frustrating job.





Last edited by jwf88 on Wed Jul 10, 2013 6:04 am; edited 1 time in total

nice P. the green wires are always shit

As a short term fix you can probably use the neutral switch wire to be the kill switch. You would lose the illumination of the neutral light in the speedo, but you'd gain a kill switch until you get around to running a new one.

nice ... how the hell you keep that mirror on?? mine rattled off

the mirror is just clamped on tight as i could shimmed with a bit of electrical tape. i havent ridden it to much. i hope it dosnt fall off lol

i might just run the new wire. my neutral light dosnt work either so il need to check that wire too probably

Your scoot is what I dream of.

nice bike mate, wish mine is as good as your

Very nice scoot and what a rad dad, too!

Just an added note, It looks like your rear rim is set-up wrong. It should resemble your front wheel, which is set-up right. Just a minor observation.

All in all, sweet skoota! Enjoy!!

Cheers

Glad it's working for ya! Yea, fuel and oil lines should help with a bit of reliability down the road....the bike looks good.

@Vader is correct about sourcing an air leak somewhere. Looks like you may have that sorted. Maybe draining the fluids helped preserve the seals?

I like it...welcome to the club...now let's see you at some rallies grabbin' potatoes and chit. FTW.

Is it backwards? Now that you bring it up I can see a difference. I put it back on the same way it came off...

Sure I'll do my best. Cant resist potatoes

Wow- looks great! Makes me want to get rid of that ugly formerly silver flat grey on mine and go with white next time.

Nice that you got a great scooter from your dad.. Hang on to it.

I want to you lucky dawg you!

Great story & a beautiful white P. Congrats on knowing what you have and valuing it. But isn't that new B6HS you're running the wrong plug? Shouldn't it be a B7ES or B6ES? Longer reach for your fatter head, gonna run even better now!

....I thought this thing needed a short plug...shhhhhh

I'll get on that before I ride again. Im glad I mentioned the plug type I used and thank you for pointing that out.

I'm glad you guys like it

Love it. Don't even use a B6ES - I would use a B7ES-B8ES.

yeah i got a number 7 plug. works great now haha. also i turned the rear wheel around to the correct position. handles better but its rubbing now! the sidewall is rubbing the clutch side of the engine. theres white dust all over

Im in Aurora and just got a baby blue P200. Where near Chicago are you?

ouch. the damage on the tire isnt all the way around. looks like the wheel tilts when it spins.

That happened to mine, caused the tire to blow at 55 to 60 mph, not pleasant. I would suggest a set of new Clauss mounts. Its a PIA getting the old engine mounts out, but well worth it.

thanks i'm changing the rear shock soon so its probably the time to do this anyway. Im glad I noticed those bits of rubber. I was 20 miles from home! I took the wheel off in a parking lot and put it on backwards again so the offset was the other direction, moving the sidewall away from the engine. Made it home safe

Alright, so regarding the rubbing tire...Ive found two odd things besides the possibility of bad engine mounts.

A: the tire actually measures 3-5/8" wide overall, not 3-1/2.
B: the rear hub has a tiny bit of play in it. Like if I grab the wheel and try to wiggle it, the hub lets it move maybe 1/16"

Should the hub have this amount of play? 3-5/8 is probably too wide for the tire but I think it only makes contact when the hub shifts....I dont know whats normal for these components.

Pop the cap off your rear hub & see what's going on in there. The hub should be tight to the axle & not 'wiggling' like that. Maybe support the rear end or motor (WHOLE f'n threads on this*), take off wheel & feel for hub play with your hands if in doubt.

There was another whole thread* recently on over-fat whitewall tires that rubbed like yours both front & rear.

But DO take the BEST pic you can of your scooter square on from the rear, portrait mode and post it up for more opinion on your motor mounts BEFORE you attack them. Worn motor mounts don't tilt the wheel into the clutch cover, they just tilt the whole assembly.



PS *For better 'service' when you have any problem with your shifty, post it up in NSM and you'll get more experts looking in & helping you fix stuff properly. If the hub is dicey or something similar, best start a new thread over there on that, and maybe a link to this one if you want.

The shock and engine are not tilting the wheel. The wheel is tilting with the hub. I will take the cover off and look at it tomorow. The only rubbing whitewall threads I've seen involved continental tires, which is not what I have.

This one makes me wonder about the shock.



Why do its vertical & horizontal elements appear to be SO out of square?

Your straight on rear shot is ~OK, but could be MUCH more useful in seeing the motor alignment if your shot is of the whole bike and as 'tall' as your camera allows, rather than wide.
This will help see and use the 'longest' centerline to find true vertical. The short section of white center seam isn't long enough & the separate plastic bumper doesn't count.

OK, now , keep posting..

Don't like adding this, but please don't ride it until you see what's causing this.

Then...




Ride Safe!

So I pulled the cap off the rear hub and pulled the cotter pin out. Low and behold...I was able to unscrew the castle nut by hand. I probably should have checked this first. I looked at everything else and tried to shake the brake drum and the shaft and all but it was all solid. I looked at the teeth on the hub cover and the shaft and they look ok to me.

I put the nut back on and tightened it has hard as I could by hand and this stopped the wiggle. I spun the hub and looked at the end and I didn't see any side to side oscillation.

I took pictures anyway. The engine has grease on it which also has bits of rubber stuck in it so it look pretty dirty. I rode around briefly today and didn't notice any new damage to the tire.

I'm not sure what your saying about the shock. It was probably camera perspective. I used a camera phone for that picture and those usually are very wide view cameras and cause image warping. It is an ancient shock too though. I have a new one but not the rubber mounts haha

I think you're right, this:


looks a lot better than this:


Glad you found the problem so easily. I was hoping nothing worn out & just a loose nut, but was afraid I might jinx you.

Tire problems gone? So how does she ride now?

OK now, NO more riding for you until you torque that nut up tight with tools, preferably with a torque wrench. Or as ~tight as you can~ without one.

sorry, seems to be a nasty new habit of mine...

Heads up you definitely want to torque that rear hub on TIGHT! Put a new cotter pin in too while your at it.

This link has torque values at the bottom of the page for reference.

http://www.vespamaintenance.com/specs.html

I had the same rubbing problem with a P200 I had a few years ago. Just like your dad's bike, it was a 81 P200 with Shinko whitewalls. I barely put any miles on the tires before I noticed the white rubber everywhere.

I thought it was a motor mount problem so I replaced them and then sold the P before I had a chance to see if that solved the problem. While I was changing the mounts, I used a can of brake cleaner to blast all the rubber off and de-grease the engine which made it look oh so nice!

I'm wondering if the Shinko whitewalls balloon out more than other tires and just happen to rub on the rear shock???

Congrats on the P200 man

Hahaha OH NO when I say by hand I mean I used a wrench, just not a torque wrench. I have a torque wrench but didnt know the spec so I just wrenched it as tight as I could.

Thanks for torque specs and the tip on using brake cleaner to clean it...when I reassembled everything I tried using an SOS pad which did almost nothing.
This one didnt just rub the shock, it made most of it's contact against the engine case. Even now there is a very small amount of space between the sidewall and engine/shock. Small enough that the little wiskers on the tire are brushing against those parts. The side to side movment of the hub was causing the rubbing for sure though. Like I had posted earlier, the width measures 3-5/8" which means the sidewall would only be 1/16" closer to the engine/shock side than a tire that measures 3.5". There isnt much clearance back there on any tire haha

Beautiful scooter by the way. I love that color of blue and whitewalls make everything better!! God I love whitewalls