Modern Vespa

might as well spray bomb the plug you made

nice work.

I started on running the wire harness today. I decided use a Euro PX (with battery, with signals) harness. I’d rather have used a US harness for the 2005 PX150, but it’s not readily available.

Here’s a pic of the harness...

Since I’m planning on running spot lights, grip heaters, and a GPS, I wanted to add more wires to the new harness before I installed it. To “chase” the wires though the sheathing on the harness, I used a leftover inner speedometer cable that I had laying around the shop. I can’t remember what it’s from, but it works amazing for chasing wires in auto wire harnesses.

Here’s a pic of the speedo cable that I pushed through the wire harness. I started at the regulator, and it popped out up at the horncast. I soldered the end of my wire to the end of the speedo cable. After that, I pulled the cable the rest of the way through the harness. It was very easy. Took about 5 seconds.

and an “after” pic of wire...

And here’s a pic of the front. I ran two 16 gauge red wires starting from the battery area, to the horncast. One wire will be for the spot lights, and the other will be for the grip heaters and 12VDC power for accessories.

Since this is a Largeframe harness going into a Smallframe, some of the wires will need to be shortened, while other wire will need to be lengthened some. I also added an additional ground wire in the harness as well. One can never be too well grounded.

I haven’t shortened up any of the wires just yet because I’m waiting for a few more parts for my harness (turn signal switch, front brake switch, battery cable, ext...) to show up from Beedspeed.

I’ll also be converting over to a full 12VDC system as well...

I’m finally getting around to working on the PK. I’ve been waiting for parts to arrive from the UK, so I’ve been dead in the water for the past month or so. Because of that wait, I got motivated to do something with my stock sized fuel tank...

I used 18 gauge steel for the project.





Last edited by whodatschrome on Sat Jun 16, 2018 11:12 pm; edited 1 time in total

A couple other angles...

With the sides and bottom welding in...

I made the top out of 16 gauge.

Top all welded up...

What it looks like from a different angle.

And the other side..

Wow! That's impressive.

I’m thing it will hold an extra 1.5-2 quarts of fuel. And since the PK has a glovebox, I don’t think the space that I lost will affect anything. The only thing I really ever carried in that box was oil. And since my plan is to fab up a custom oil reservoir for the auto lube, I won’t need to carry oil with me anyhow.

I also got a start on the wiring. I ended up mounting the battery underneath the fuel tank so I could have more room for “other” things under the cowl.

the regulator also got mounted under the tank, right above the upper shock mount.

I went crazy with the alligator clips while testing out some electronic devices.

I was hoping to be finished with the scooter by now, but the place in the UK where I ordered my headlight switches from, sent the wrong ones....and it took them a full month to get those wrong ones shipped. I returned them, they received them 6 days later. Now I’ve been waiting 2 weeks for them to ship out the correct switches that they have in stock. It looks like their super slow shipping, as well as their mix-ups is going to cost me close to 2-3 months of lost time!

I got a fair amount accomplished on the PK in the past two days.

I was racking my brain trying to figure out an oil reservoir tank for the autolube. The main thing I was after was that I wanted something that I could glance at to see how full the reservoir is. So I needed something with a sight glass...then I thought of using a Nalgene bottle. From my google searching, it looks like the plastic won’t react with the 2 stroke oil.

I spent $8 on a Nalgene, drilled a hole in the bottom of it, then screwed in the fitting. I put oil in it overnight as a test, and no leaks were found.





Last edited by whodatschrome on Fri Jun 29, 2018 5:45 am; edited 1 time in total

A closer up pic of the fitting. The bottle mounts perfectly in a bicycle water bottle holder. You can also see the oil line going through the frame.

I also did a bunch of wiring. I mounted a fuse box (4 gang) right next to the bottle. Since I’ll have a few different electrical accessories, I want to get fuses on all of them.





Last edited by whodatschrome on Fri Jun 29, 2018 5:44 am; edited 1 time in total

Here’s a pic of what’s happening underneath the tank....

You can see the oil injection hose passing through the frame. I ended up moving my battery forward about another inch so that that hose could have room to slip past the battery tray.

...and the hose coming out though the other side.

Since I had to remove the battery tray again, I took a pic of it. The rubber strap is off of a KTM. KTM used that same rubber strap from about 1998 to present day. They use it as a battery strap as well a strap to retain the sidestand.

You do really nice work, solutions that are easy to service and look like they will last. I like the 2T tank w/ the easy to read oil level.
And this little number just kicks ass:


PS I'm liking your Pk style, even the color so despite your cheater motor, I think it needs to be here when done enough: PK love page .

Thank you for the compliment Voodoo.

When I get it finished, i'll post it over at the PK love page. Nothing says lovin like a pink PK.

since I’m not going to be using a normal center mounted brake light, I wired in a box that makes my rear turn singles also function as brakes lights. The control box got mounted up next to the Vape regulator.

And the rear LED signals/brake lights. I found them at a truck supply shop. They’re pretty darn bright in the daylight, so that’s a good safety feature.

Well the Nalgene bottle idea didn’t go quite as well as I envisioned...so I bought a pink bottle instead. All is good now.

With it mounted up, it looks much better.

I also drilled a hole in the cap in order to install a one-way check valve.

And since I have a full 12 volt DC system, I’m using front LED turn signals as well. I found some 3/4” LEDs at my favorite trucker shop. They happen to fit absolutely perfect inside of my turn signal housings!

I also decided to install a second LED in the turn signal housing to be used as running lights. I wired it up so that the second LED running light will turn on when the rear running light come on. They’re a bit hard to see in the pic because they’re a fairly small surface mount LED. They emit a very nice glow after dark. It will also be a nice safety feature.

And now the reason why I tucked in that Nalgene bottle so far under the cowl area...

...I needed all the room I could get to bolt up a MRP storage box.

The MRP box doesn’t come with any hardware, so I bought three 1/4” spacers and welded them to the back side of the box. It needs those spacers because there are indentations in the sheet metal, which won’t let the box bolt down correctly.

I then used a countersink bit, so that I could keep the the countersink bolts nice and flush so that nothing rubs against them.

You can also see that I redrilled the holes. I needed as much room as I could get for that Nalgene bottle to fit, so I had to move the box about another 3/4” towards the rear of the scoot.

Beautiful work and attention to detail. I’m sure you’ve thought about it, but with the bottle and MRP box mounted, have you left yourself enough room to fit a pipe and enough clearance for the rear wheel?