Modern Vespa

getting ready to ride out to a rally in the morning. 131 miles to the rally. then a 4-5 hour group ride. it's gonna be a long day

Fun day mac. No crashing today G!

some Hooligans coming over for wrenching, riding, and drinking. Not necessarily in that order.

... put a new seat on my small frame (the Stremline is still my favorite for aesthetics by far, but isn't THE most comfortable for long rides) I put on a Corsa MKII from Scooter Center and it's awesome.. looks great and has more padding..

... also got my registration for my Jet200 and now I'm all legal.. what a gigantic pain in the ass that process was.. but it's finally done.. they accepted the 2nd of two brake/light inspection certificates I'd sent in.. Thank God.

Took the lammy out for a nice plug chop session.. Very happy w/ the plug.. I'll probably go down one size on the main, but it ran great.

How did you put a title/date on a video that i shot?

Weird

air leak in bull so out with lump n split it ..... fuckin petrol in oil ... changed christmas tree as its been slipping gears ... forgot about needles so they all fell out ....
changed flywheel side seal now need to change main oil seal ... fuckin clutch out n crank out bastard thing...
dont think itll be finished tomorrow
2scoots none running

Went out for my first decent ride. The motor stumbled a little in third gear and I thought I might have a slight soft seize. Turned around and went back home, head and cylinder off - perfect condition. Out again, almost the same thing happens. A half mile from home, it starts stumbling, then quits. A quick look at the spark - good. Moved the bellows to look at the fuel line- dry, with sediment in it. A push home (mostly uphill). This time I'll do a better job cleaning it up

Put the Primavera engine back together with my newly o-ringed head (thanks Hot Rod Al). Got it back in the bike and had a short run around the neighborhood. Longer test run later this week!

after celebrate it by riding through a massive rain strom yestreday, today i became 33yo plus 1 days 8) the rain is indeed the best gift ever

have a nice summer to you all and cheer

happy birthday mate,,now you as old as your vespa...:p

Smallframe case gasket is leaking, just got it back together yesterday. I've seen 2 kinds, one more papery and one a bit thicker. I didn't re-use the thicker one and chose to use the new, thinner version. Now I gotta take the whole shebang apart again . I already tried tightening up all the bolts in the area.

Well I'll take it out a few times and check the selector business out, need an answer on whether I've fixed the popping out of gear before I rip it all apart again. Paper towels on the floor underneath for now I suppose.

id like to thank mother nature for keeping the sun out and me mate mick for being on tother end of the phone even on a bank holiday monday .... its back together n running now no leaks no petrol in gear oil n no slipping outta 3rd..... forgot the christmas tree would shed its needles when you knock it out .... you know what it looks like together

These are your friends:

Seen this? It was great... really well done considering the "equipment" they used (check out the bit at the end). I haven't seen the series so it might be sacrilege to some die-hard fans.

Happy birthday brother e!!!! Hope all is well in indo

Big time! Happy Birthday Ebeth! .. I wish you many many more!

So, do you sit way, way back on the seat, arms all stretched out or am I missing something here?

B'day, happy -> ebeth

So the Permashield is the current version of Hylomar, yes? I've got a fresh tube of that waiting. What do you use the form-a-gasket on? I used greased gaskets on this build, same as last time. However, the gaskets were more "paper-y" and less thick. I've reordered the kit that had the better ones and am making a plan of attack here. I'm thinking hylomar on the case gasket and cylinder base gasket. I used Hondabond on the intake, but that's another story - somewhere I've got an air leak based on my ride today. The oil seals are <1000 miles on them but I'll have a look at it all soon.

Yes, Perma Shield is Permatex's version of Hylomar Blue. The Form-a-Gasket Permatex No 3 "Aviation" is sort of like Hylomar Blue, in that it's a liquid gasket dressing that doesn't harden. It's a thick brown tree sap like goo that super sticky, but I wouldn't use it without a gasket except on low torque parts because of it's tendency to "squeeze out" without something to cling to, like Hylomar Blue. I use it for gaskets on parts that won't be disassembled often, like case gaskets because it tends to glue the parts together but usually allows the gasket to be removed without damage. Plus it's incredibly cheap and resists pretty much everything but pure alcohol and acetone, and brake parts cleaner.

its just dumped on me shed .... sip seats dont hinge they just lift off


n hippo birdy e you young man

Today I cannot wait to get my new rims and tires on!!!

But first I need to get my Mikuni tuned...

then its bye bye inner-tubes

Thank you Rob Hodge

many thanks Guys and as you all wish i will be forever young


have a nice day to you all and cheer

swapped the exhaust on my P (kind of a beee-atch to do) and FORGOT that I'd wanted to rotate my tires.. my K58's are good tires.. nobby as hell, but the rear has about had it and the front is like new.. so I wanted to flop 'em and get another 1000 miles or so out of 'em.. but I forgot and I don't feel like pulling the damn pipe off..

... gotta get myself a project dry-erase board.. or just eat some memory food.. what's that? bananas?

V - Get a dry erase board, biggest one you can find. I have one in my garage and it helps me keep up with all the chit that needs doin'. I only have the one scoot, but also have four vehicles - my truck, the wife's ride, and a couple of cars for the kids (all four drive now- scary).

Sounds like you've got plenty to fill a board with..

Seriously... I need one.. Imma get one.. that's that... Harbor Freight here I come!

I do make notepads, but then the pad gets forgotten all together somewhere on my table.. a big dry erase board staring me in the face will be hard to ignore.. and I'll do less of that kind of tomfoolery. IIHO I'd have swapped tires while I had the exhaust off and all would be right in the world..

Thanks T

I did get a package of nuts / washers.. I love buying bulk online.. saves so much compared to hardware store.. M10 wavy washers for instance.. in stainless are 53 cents EACH! at the hardware store.. (clerk says they're so expensive because there's only one supplier ) I buy a baggie of same thing M10 stainless wavy washers for 4 bucks.. that's 4 cents each... needless to say, it's a no brainer.

i have a localish shop called b&d bolts .... guess what they do .... minimum spend 2quid .... i got a full scooters worth of nuts bolts washers splits nylocks for 7quid n a load to spare all in stainless ..... love the place

Vader - One more thing - get red and black markers for the board. Red for what needs doin' NOW, black for when you get around to it. Works for me, keeps me sane and wife out of my garage. Yeah, I said it - she can have the house, garage is all mine.

Those black ones would be still new after a year!

I think so G... and the board would just be filled w/ red and most of it wouldn't get erased... the DO IT NOW stuff would just sit up on the board until I felt like doing it..

Nahh... I'm really, probably, maybe gonna get one.. if it'll help me from doing stuff like not rotating my tires when I had the Perfect opportunity, it'll be worth every penny.. Dollar Store.. here I come. [/list]

Met a mate at the pub near my house. They have a bike show every year and he's entered a bike this year. Mainly café racers and scramblers but there was one Lammy.

The other day I ran down my battery and it wouldn't hold a charge so I bought an new one, charged it up and my turn signals still didn't work (I need a charged battery for my turn signals to work since I got a 55/60W headlight instead of the stock 35/35W). Found out the battery fuse had popped, thought it might have happened when charging, so I replaced it and thought nothing of it until today when the turn signals stopped working while heading to college. The fuse had popped again, so I thought it might be a short. I remembered I had felt a wire catching on the throttle tube a few days back but it had stopped, so I thought to check there first. Well the wire had lodged itself under the throttle pulley stop and was preventing the throttle from opening all the way, indecently I found out why it seemed like I had lost some top end. The wire was the kill switch wire and was fine, so it wasn't the problem. So I zip tied all the wires out of the way in the headset so it wouldn't happen again, but I still hadn't found the short. Well it turns out I had left a bare connector in the wire to the engine side cowl turn signal and it was intermittently grounding on the crankcase. So I wrapped that up in electrical tape and killed two birds at once. I forgot to mention this was in the college parking lot... while it was raining.

Yesterday I made a "cold air" intake out of the rubber hose elbow from the stock airbox (that I chopped up to make a mudguard) and an ABS sewer pipe fitting I made into a velocity stack. Sits above the rear wheel mudguard sucks in cooler air than the filter being on the end of the carb. Flows a lot more air and had to up jet quite a bit.

Hey Vader, where did you order those nuts n' bolts from?

I'm sick of both hardware store pricing and quality.

is it my eyesight or does the bloke on your gif kick a wing mirror onto that car?

It's one of those spring loaded mirrors that knocks you into the next lane

That's Sandy's entry, the owner of ssscooter engineering.

... got some "spark plug gaskets" in the mail..

I've been looking for replacement crush washers.. these are what they have. they're made in aluminum and copper.. when setting up a bike, I may take the plug out and put it back in a handful of times and the crush washers get well... crushed.. so I found some replaceable crush washers or as they call them gaskets. (man from aircraft spruce told me yes, I can snip off my old crush washer and use these)

BUT.. they outer diameter is too big for my cylinder head.. I'm going to try and grind one down to size and see if it works.. They need to be 14mm inner and 19mm outer diameter like the ones that come on plugs.. but these are 14 inner and 22 outer.. they will fit a 210 nicely, but not my RB head..

Put motor on the workbench to change out the rubber bushes because they're very squishy. They came out easy in just a few minutes(!).
Figured while it's out I'd crack the case and replace the kickstart gear and shifting cross. As it turns out I also had to go 1 oversize with the gear shim. I'm surprised at how bad the cross and the shim were because it didn't feel too bad when shifting.

Everything is all buttoned back up but apparently the new bushes are being shipped via wagon train..

Today, after 17 years, i quit my job. Time for something else. Don't know what, but i have 2 months to find a job.

Sara