Modern Vespa

Note to self: when reassembling the scooter, there will come a time when you reinstall the tank, connect the fuel tap lever, pour some gas in the tank, open the fuel tap, and give the engine a few kicks.

At some point in between "reinstall the tank" and "open the fuel tap", the seasoned professional would do well to connect the fuel line.

As long as you did not set it on fire, you're good.

But we love keeping warm and hearing stories straight from the heart, spoken around a nice big flame.

Happened to me last week!

This is my measure of success, too.

Whether for toasting marshmallows or raining down on Charlie, fire is your friend.

Today I .... worked out that I don't always offer the best advice when asked for the more times that years that I've been alive!

Ha Ha! Ain't it the truth. The older I get, the more I realize what I don't know, rather than what I do know (or forgotten).

Did just this a few days ago
kicked it maybe 20 times because I thought it was rich cuz I spilled fuel down the hole but nope... Just the hose

I spent a few hours getting the Lammy cases cleaned up this evening.

The dirt and oil had hardened into something almost like asphalt 1/4" thick in places.

In the meantime, the last of the parts but the chain pulldown arrived, so now I can finish disassembly and get on to putting it all back together.

Looking legit, chandlerman

You just need to send wife to shops (sorry, that was meant to read "surprise her with a 1/2 day beauty treatment" as it takes a pots cycle) then use dishwasher, that will sort it

I played that card years ago. The whole house smelled like lemon-scented motor oil when she got home. And she noticed.

Get her drunk(er)?

Cleaned up my parts washer. It was way overdue. Look all that sludge…

I did the same on my ultrasonic cleaner recently. The problem I have now is that I don't want to use it unless the parts are already mostly clean.

I feel the same. From now on, definitely going to clean engines, parts, etc. better before going in the washer…

You should be able to refine that and make gasoline out of it. Or seal-coat your asphalt driveway.

Every Man-Cave needs a DISHWASHER... & if your partner is unwilling, get a used one for yourself.

It's not so much about "need" as it's about "where the hell would I put it???"

You're already one up on many of us by having a parts washer and an ultrasonic.

I just have a very large ultrasonic. SaFis has the parts washer.

(Upper) wall Mount it, like a clothes dryer
or
Outside under cover
or use it as storage (complete with pull-out racking)

They have a nice flat top, so great as a strong table

When I lived in a womanless household, I used the dishwasher a couple times for parts, just because I could. Even though I did a lot of flexing and chest pounding while the dishwasher was running, it didn't do that great a job. However, I felt more manly as a result.

I would really like to have a decent sized ultrasonic cleaner. A friend has one he used to clean out an oil cooler and it came out great.

I might also make a rock tumbler to shine up hardware. Saw a video where someone made one with a drill and a large coffee can.

Nothing beats the dryer for tumble cleaning a gas tank though.

Not the best for drying Steel Capped boots late at night in a camping ground though !

I use a vibratory case tumbler (https://www.cabelas.com/shop/en/lyman-turbo-1200-pro-tumbler) for small parts. Your choice of media... crushed walnut shell works wonders.

These are awesome! Worked in a shop that in had really cool trick of using one of these with cut up stainless TIG rods as the media. We'd fill with water and a cap full of simple green. was infinitely reusable!

Got a set of CNC aluminum mirror/gauge brackets from PCBway. Came out really nice

PCBWay? I've used them for PCBs quite a bit in the past, didn't know they were doing CNC now.

Wasn't aware of this site, thanks! I'll probably have them CNC my custom badges I did with SLS & Alumide a while back. Price quote I got for each badge is pretty reasonable...

This week I've been under the gun to get our new additions to the chicken family. Up to 21 now… chickens are like scooters it seems.

Anyways the new chicks are 8 weeks old and have way too quickly out grown the dog crate I have them in. So I needed to build a transition coop for them to go outside and give me back my shop.

After a few weeks they'll live with the other 9 ladies we have but you can't just do that right off the bat or the older ladies will murder them all. After they move out of here it'll turn into a hospital/ nursery coop. Next time I'm just getting hatching eggs and letting a lady raise them for me.

They're too stinky and messy to deal with! Should be done this weekend. Needed to be done last weekend but it rained a lot.

Any who, yesterday I built the platform and leveled it all up. Kind of. Today I got the plywood floor down and coated it with rubber coat 57. Which is a rubber roof sealer. This way the plywood is sealed totally from their poop. The floor should out live the coop. Did this with the main coop and it's been wonderful. Clean outs are a breeze with it. Nothing sticks to it. Easy peasy.

Got the walls framed up and just gotta get 2 sheets of plywood tomorrow and build the roof. They should be out by Sunday.

If you ever get sick of the chickens then at least you have a sturdy raised table to fix scooters on.
Bet those chickens would love a custom perch, i hear they prefer ones that have a shape very similar to an engine stand & a wheel support/chock.

Apologies, that was supposed to read "multi-tier pecking order stand" & "chook chock with automatic egg collection device"

Out door scooter table is no longer.

Got the walls and roof "joists" up today. Luckily the rubber coat was on as my neighbor dumped her compost on it this morning. She drops off her scraps for the chickens and for some reason dumped it there. She's old.

Also started the plywood sheeting but didn't take a pic of that as I was also making dinner at the same time. Running inside to stir, outside to nail, back inside to stir rinse and repeat for 30 mins or so…

Started work on that bodged up Sprint V. The primary was giving me hard time getting it out. Reason was the bearing and spacer they made instead of installing the "more expensive" correct sized bearing. And look at all the cables. I mean, how much would it cost replacing them with new ones, instead of dressing them up with heat shrink tubing…

This looks it could be my work, but it's not. I had my tires put on by the auto-tech program at the school where I work. I thought my chances were good since they have a machine that will do small rims and the students have a lot of experience running it. I guess the arm came off the rim while removing a tire. The instructor also insisted I was wrong about the reverse rotation of the front tire and refused to put it on that way. These are cheap rims that came in the parts stash when I bought the scooters, so no biggie.

I'm going to give them a try. If they rock my world, I will buy some quality tubeless split rims so I can do it myself. If not, I'll just stick with split rims and tubes.

Tell him he's an idiot and he should be educated on modern tires before passing knowledge to students…

Rims are cheap Chinese copies of the mozzarella made F.A. Italia ones. You can find them on AliExpress…

Fin.

Kind of. Gotta build a fence wall still but the coop is all done and the birbs moved into their new home last night. They were NOT excited about the move. I dunno if you all know this but chickens do not like change at all.

I know I've been kind've quiet around here lately because I've been in Lammy-Land. I rebuilt the motor, including putting a Quattrini TV-210 top end on it.

I also installed a 5 plate clutch and, naturally, ordered the wrong exhaust. I now know that the Quattrini needs a non-standard exhaust fitting/flange. I was able to borrow something that sort've worked from one of my clubmates, though, so I can keep the work rolling.

I ordered an appropriate exhaust, the Gori M-210-TV (https://www.sip-scootershop.com/en/product/racing-exhaust-gori-m210-tv_22088000), pretending that I understand neither the Sunk Cost Fallacy nor what "money" is, plus two day shipping since I'm still imagining I can be riding by Saturday.

This was the first start attempt, and ignition timing is waaaay off. It's a variable Vape, and I'd guess it's less than 10 degrees BTDC, so any time it retarded from the idle time, it immediately misfired.

I started with a PWK 34 carb, but it's too large, so I've already swapped for a PWK-28 that was on my shelf (and is Quattrini's recommended size).

And for added comedic effect, I had probably 10% mix in my test tank, so nice n' smoky.

Smoke looks like it's computer generated…