Modern Vespa

How did it start



I used to own a Vespa about 15 years ago as a student , it was painted with black and white stripes like a zebra. It had a personality of its own and had to fix it next to the road with a piece of wire and cable ties many times. OK I have to admit that when I got it the odometer wasn't working and the last reading was 80000km. If Vespa Mileage was the same as dog years it meant that it had done about 560000km. The old machine had done its part to take its previous owners where they wanted to be.
I used to love the way that it made serious disgruntled people laugh when ever I pulled in next to them in traffic, trying to ignore me for the first few seconds and then bursting out with laughter.
I unfortunately had to sell it but always fancy-ed the idea of owning another Vespa one day.

This is where my new vespa story starts,

After breakfast at Biccs in Waterkloof with some friends I had a chat with Gavin the owner about the beautiful Vespas in front of his shop. I happen to mention to him that I would love to restore and own another Vespa one day. It Didn't take him more that 2 seconds to offer me a scooter that's been in his garage for the last couple of years. His plan was to restore it himself but he soon realized that he didn't have the time to get round doing it. When I asked him about the paying for it he refused to take money saying that it will give him enough pleasure just to see it going one day.

Well that said and done I hopped in my bakkie one night after work to go and fetch the scoot. When myself and Gavin started loading all the spare parts on my car we realized that the engine was missing. He had somebody break into his garage a few months ago and steal his wheelbarrow loading it with whatever they could find including the Vespa engine, probably to sell it as scrap metal for R20.

When I got home I couldn't wait to get the frame number to try and find out what model and year the scooter was. To my absolute delight it turned out to be a 1966 sprint 150 a real classic!!!

Now the work needs to start, I don't think I realize what I have got myself into, only time will tell but one think is for sure I'm determined to make a very big success out of this project

http://rdeyzel.blogspot.com/2013/07/how-did-it-start.html

Great, good luck! Where are you based?

Great story & Gavin is my hero, but a shame about the motor being pinched. I hope you can find a proper one for the scoot which seems to be very solid.

I was also impressed with the mat in the bed of your bakkie (bakkie? wassat, a pickup truck in Afrikaans?). It looks to have been made from old tires.

Thank's going to need it! I'm in Pretoria

Jy praat lekker Voodoo

MMM very impressed with your Afrikaans! How do you know Gavin....?

And yes Bakkie means pickup, I actually wrote it in my blog to share the story with some friends and family at first but decided to use that content on the forum to start sharing it with some other enthusiast that might be able to help me do this properly!

I read about him in this cool story on Modern Vespa, this cool forum that I.....

YOU told me!

More pics soon? and How are you looking for a motor? Any leads? Most of us are so damn far away from you... There ARE a few other members there I think.

OK, now I'm lost. Hoist on his own petard*. Shit!

oh!...............wait wait, does this involve liquor? 8)

edit: *Wow, now THAT'S weird! If you try to post the word petard, plain text, it comes up 'pie'. Jess? Wat u doin' there? There's MORE! Plain pie comes up 'cupcake'! How quaint, a word puzzle game whilst posting! Must be some new entertainment over on the modern side. They rarely have to fix their scoots & have to fill the time.

Howzit Ruan. Welcome to Vespa! I'm in Germany for a week, and was trawling Vespa forums seeing as I'm not home (missing working on my Vespas!). Loved seeing your post.
I live in Henley-on-Klip. Been playing with Vespas for a while. Let me know ifiu need some local help. (PM me...I think, as I'm not sure how to PM...)
Cheers

Looks like you have the great base to start from, hope you find a good heart for her.

Hi Jason , just getting into the Forum thing myself. great to hear that there are some fellow SA vespa heads on the forum.

I'm going to need lots of help, steep learning curve for me at the moment. keep on reading the thread.

Cheers

Hi Lynn , yes thanks its pretty good just a pity that there are some key components missing but otherwise no bad rust or anything.

I decided today to try and clean the exhaust pipe using a technique that I heard about many years ago, it made some sense and seemed to have worked well.

I made a big fire and got the pipe glowing red hot and kept it in the fire until no more visible smoke was coming out of the pipe,

Please give me some Ideas what coating has worked best , I'm thinking either to do a black high temp paint or plating.

This is going to be a great journey. Keep updated the project with Picts and best of luck

Dude that's rad!!! I love the BBQ exhaust!!! I'm gonna try it on an old stock P2 exhaust I just picked up.. I love that it got red hot!! And if you say it worked all the more reason to start a FIRE! (ANY reason is a good reason to make fire)

How long did you cook it for?

I had it in there for about 30min , waited until no more smoke was coming out of the pipe reckoned that meant that all the gunk was burned out.

Ruan did you study at Stellenbosch? I remember a Zebra vespa running about town.

Keep us updated. This looks like a great project.

that bbq isnt ready for burgers yet

any reason you doused with water? Is it better than letting it cool on its own overnight?

Theoretically steel looses its hardness or temper when it cools down very slowly, If you cool it down fast it will harden. It all depends what the carbon content of the steel is. If it has a very low carbon content then it wont make any difference if it cools down fast or slow, we obviously don't know what the composition of the steel is so I figured fast wont do any harm and it its much more spectacular!!!

right on. thanks for the reply

And you wonder why no one wants to come visit your place for a braai Ruan !

Are you still able to buy Vespa parts in SA? I remember Roma Guzzi in Jo'burg sold them but I have been told that they are long gone now.

nice project mate, and yes do love ur BBQ

please tell nobody that I used the same braai for my vespa pipe!

I'm kind of new to the vespa scene and only know about kava in downtown joburg and there are a couple of really good guys in cape town. for now I'm giving Beedspeed in the UK a go , prices seem fair and quality is up there. I don't want to use indian parts if I can help it.

suggestions would be appreciated!

BBQ pipes are the new BBQ racks.

Cool project mate, love the Sprint's, SS180, and GL bikes.

I'd be interested to see if you reckon there's any performance improvement after BBQing your pipe. After doing the drain cleaner thing with mine there was none at all even though heaps of crap came out.

I seldom do something that takes allot of time and effort without trying to think up a plan to do it easier faster or better. Exactly that happened when I started cleaning the first of a bucket full of rusted nuts and bolts. My first idea was to use my dremel with a wire brush, to be honest it took so long that by the time that I would have finished all of them the selling of petrol would have been banned by the UN.

Then the a idea dawned on me to use some kind of acid to magically etch the dirt and rust formed over the last 47 years of. I then got some swimming pool acid from my local hardware store and employed the little bit of chemistry knowledge that I got in school to build my own miniature acid dipping plant.

I took thin pieces of stainless steal wire, tied it to each part that needed cleaning and dipped it into the pool acid for 10 minutes. After taking it out I neutralized the acid by dipping it into a bicarbonate of soda and water mixture that I made.

With absolutely no effort the parts came out looking like they where just made in the factory!!!! now that's what I call easy. I hope that I haven't taken to many years of my life expectancy with the fumes that got me a couple of times, please be careful when trying this

http://rdeyzel.blogspot.com/

Those do look really nice!!! I love how it's called Easy Acid! something just seems weird about that to me! Nice job.. and thanks for the tip on the bicarbonate to stop the acid... errr EASY acid!

be right back, need to swipe this for tips n trix...


Oh, that little short fat round head screw in the middle?
Aluminum & plugs off the spare tire bracket holes in the column?
Maybe best to leave any aluminum out or run alone, as it will react differently than stainless or normal steel to your acid experiments.

As you already know I got this 66' sprint for free but unfortunately the engine got stolen to be sold as scrap metal
For a good couple of weeks I have been watching the classified's like a hawk without success.
That's when I thought I should maybe place a wanted add on one of our popular online classifieds her in SA. Within a few hours a got a few replies and the one that interested me was from a gent in Cape Town that had a original 1965 GL 150. After he sent me some pictures I bought the following for R2000 ($210 us)

1. Engine casing

2. Cylinder (Honed)

3. Flywheel

4. Cylinder head

5. Gear selector box

6. Kick-start gear

7. Kick start spring

8. All gears input

9. Main output gear shaft and gears complete (and cruciform) I don't think this engine was used for long so all these bits are in excellent condition. (and it definitely hasn't been used for the last 22 years)

10. Selector gear (input) x 2

11. Stator plate with condenser and coils

12. New set points (Piaggio original) not LML or Bajaj

13. Gasket set (Piaggio original)

14. Engine bolt and nut for frame

15. Whole crank and con rod (flywheel tip broken)

16 Spare crank separated (Flywheel tip broken)

17. Spare con rod

18. Spare condenser

19. Spare main bearing

20. Carburettor case

21. Carburettor bolts x 2

22. Carb filter

23. Flywheel bolt

24. Coil complete (I found the other bit-it just has to be glued back together)

25. Spare cruciform x 2

26. Rear wheel drum

27. Rear wheel castle nut

28. Engine casing bolts

28. Spark plug

29. Piston sleeve (no roller bearings though)

30. Gear selector box cover

31. Brake shoes x 2

32. Clutch disassembled with plates, springs etc. (whole)

I'd say you did VERY well! Nice goin' Ruan!

yea, cause Zinc plating is easy. I still find that the Chemdip I use for my carb, does a pretty good job of getting the dirt off.
Then I use a wire wheel on my drill, and everything else comes off quickly. I guess it does take a while to do it that way, but working on the Vespa is therapeutic for me. So, I enjoy the time spent.

Don't forget to re-zinc the bolts,nuts,etc that got acid dipped otherwise rust will form quickly. I have a zinc recipe that I will post here shortly.

Its now time to start rebuilding the engine that I bought last week. I got two crank shafts with the engine and both were broken or sheared off. Can anybody tell me if there were problems with this specific vla1m GL 150 engine? What crank would you suggest I buy thats good quality without breaking the bank.

Curious too as to what the answers to this will be. Sweet bike in SA brother. late.

Nice project, nice BBQ! Keep us updated

Don't know about the engines but this thread highlights what the differences are vs P series engines:
Difference between GL 150 and p 125/150 motors
It does mention a different crank.

This might also be useful?
GL motor vs Sprint V motor