Modern Vespa

After a couple of decades, a friend of mine is finally going to restore his Sportique. He mentioned something about the shell needing a reinforcing tube for the front fork behind the leg shield (we're looking to do a 10" wheel conversion), and possibly adding some reinforcement under the footboards to add rigidity.

As the plan is to run either a freshened-up, or at most, a 166cc kitted Bajaj 150, are the aforementioned body mods worth doing or a waste of time? Apparently a lot of VBB/Sportiques were done like this in NZ, but I'm not sure if that was a result of a weakness in the original design or a way of keeping rusty ones roadworthy... This particular example has a mint, if slightly dented after 50 years, shell.

Any suggestions/comments would be appreciated, as I suspect I'll be doing a fair amount of the engineering side of the project. Thanks in advance.

only need to strengthen the frame if your gonna take sheep on the back

'Eh! McCloud! Get offa my ewe!

I take it you know that from personal experience..?

My mate's one of those guys who can find problems where there are none, hence my question about reinforcing the bodywork.

Next question?

there's your answer

Sad but true on my second comment...

No comment on the first...

Ginch's solution looks like the best, but I don't think this guy's going to get that serious with the build.

I put those pictures up not as a suggestion but to demonstrate (to your friend) that even though Scooter & Service chucked a 24 horsepower - somewhere around 4 times the original power - motor into that VBB, they still haven't strengthened the frame at all.

And in my opinion nor should your friend.

I agree with your comments, but did promise to ask for his peace-of-mind.

FYI, I've often been asked to sort out a 'major problem' with one of his scoots which almost always requires a minor adjustment of some sort.

Cheers!

A quick update: Spoke to my buddy this afternoon and he's happy that the body shell doesn't need reinforcing. Thanks for the comments, both humorous or otherwise...

I'm hoping that I can start gathering all the parts we need from around his warehouse and get the main shell down to another friend of mine to have a legshield crack repaired. The guy's collected a whole lot of N-O-S bits, along with enough parts to do a 10" wheel conversion.

Once we get started on the project, I'll photograph the progress and post it on the projects thread.

Check ebay aust there is a fork to suit your project

Thanks, there are also a number of them sitting in the back of my mate's warehouse. He used to be the Piaggio importer and inherited a whole lot of parts.

I plan to tidy up an area in the warehouse where I can start collecting all the bits he's got so that we can make a start on the project. Once I've done so I'll post some pics.