Modern Vespa

Total bummer. All the parts arrived and I got everything I needed but, the rings busted during shipping. No scooting for me till midweek next week.

Nothing worse than the joy of receiving scooter parts and having a key element broken or back ordered. Bummer.

Well the day seemed to go ok. Got the cases split with out issue I did find one little bit in the crank case but it all looked like it would still work. So the gasket is setting up ill add oil tomorrow and I'm praying some how the rings will be in the mail and I can ride soon.

Silly question on the piston. The manual says to put it in with the arrow pointing at the exhaust. There is no arrow on this piston. There is a 66 5 and a Made in Italy but no arrow. I'm thinking the side with 2 ports goes up and the single port side down (towards exhaust) Sound right??

You want the piston facing so the side of the skirt with no windows faces the exhaust port.. this is what opens and closes your exhaust port.

Ok I think that makes sense. Hopefully I can put it in tonight. This not riding scooters thing sucks...

Ok last question I am almost done just reconnecting all the electrical and exhaust now. How important is adding oil to the fuel now. I have almost a full tank and I'm worried about it getting too lean with the extra oil. So I guess my question is how long does it take for the oil pump to prime? I hooked up a tube to the oil intake pipe and squeezed oil in until the pipe was full and I made sure the oil line was dripping. The last time the carb was off I am pretty sure there was oil to the carb. If I run it at idle on the stand for a good while before I put a load on the engine shouldn't it be fine? What do you guys think?

Oh I put assembly grease on all the bearings and slob reed oil on everything in there. Also the motor has been turned over many times since the oil pump was back on and filled

Well I went ahead and premixed and SHE LIVES!!!!!!!

Ran her till warm on the stand then shut her down for awhile. Tuned the carb a bit and set the idle after I warmed her again then in between freakin down pours ran her about three miles and she does just fine. I have built a couple engines before but this is the first one I have ever built for me. Feels good. Anyway time to check nuts, bolts and align my dots. Life is good and I scoot to work tomorrow

So great ya all happy now.Youll be puttin on a Friday to boot!

Yep I can already see 1/2 the breaking miles tomorrow as I take an "executive" Friday. No reason to do any actual work after noon right? After all they pay me to think and I can think on the bike

Rode in to work this morning and I am astonished at the difference. The engine is like night and day. She idles now no problem even when cold. It is so even and smooth now throughout the rev range. The last build either got some crap into it from running filterless or it was just poorly done. A stock cylinder with 20 miles on it shouldn't make more power and have better compression than the kit did right?? It does. Anyway my cheeks hurt from the grinning on the way in this morning...

This is the reason I never let anyone touch my bikes but me. Unfortunately the replacement of the bits on the shifter box didn't settle the gear jumping issue so I will order shims and a cruciform and get that sorted next week. Now that I've done it once the case splitting should be a snap. This little engine is well designed and easy to work on... Anyway