Modern Vespa

Owner always rides it like he stole it. Definitely new piston, had the cylinder measured by my machinist, nicasil is still perfect but wear suggests a next letter piston to make for it (we're going from A to B). Flywheel bearing race is dead, he was warned for excessive flywheel play when we did rings around 15k ago. He already bought a new 60mm crank and we're replacing everything inside...

Also, I made a crank bearing race removal tool (stolen from a YT video)...

I'm not saying it's not intersting, but that thing looks like a lot of work compared to using a split bearing extractor to remove a race and a crank puller to install it.

I don't mind making tools, I have en extractor, that's pretty worn out though and I also have happened to work with cranks that hadn't the 1mm gap...

I hear ya on all counts. I have a chisel I modified so it will lift the race if there's no gap, then use my split puller from there.

Meanwhile, I got the motor back in the Sprint today, which was more work than expected...as always. I wound to having to replace the clutch and one shift cable, which was a much bigger PITA than it should be. Regardless, I was ripping around the neighborhood before Christmas dinner.

This was a couple days ago, but the motor is killing it, and no gear jumps with the new cruciform.

I also got the Smallstate out since it hasn't seen much action of late. Such a fun bike to ride. I need to keep it in the rotation more, even if it is a menace and loud AF.

Plans for wrenching on scooters today!

Um, gonna have to put a pin in those for a moment...garage door torsion spring broke. A bit violently by the look of it.

Well, it's still turning wrenches, so yay?

I have had 2 of the springs break. One happened just after I closed the door while still in the garage and sounded like a rifle shot. It scared the sh!t out of me and had to change my shorts after it happened.

That looks like my garage without a bunch of junk in it! I came outside to the same thing not too long ago. When the spring broke it pulled the rod out of the end and the cable came off the pulley. Took me awhile to figure out how to put it back together. I did put the next higher rate springs on after some research. Supposed to last longer. The original springs were light ones.

Yikes.
Watch your fingers.

Let's say it's an artistic shot of the garage. There's a ton of crap in there. Three mopeds below the bent part of the rod. I spent a fair bit of time on Tetris just getting the rod down.

Wallet's still singed from transporting Dave and Christmas expenditures, so I'm just making a good fist of it. No idea how I'm going to more the new tension rod yet, it's as long as my truck!

Indeed. I have a healthy respect for those torsion springs, they can ruin the heck out of your day!

Don't get me started on garage door springs

I put in this garage door because the experts couldn't do it, and I don't blame them. I was parking a high top van in the garage and needed maximum clearance - this is 5" off the ceiling, and a total bitch to wind up the springs. Looks like it's time to spray some lube on them...

Unless you're well versed in garage door installations, i'd highly recommend to have an expert fix the door. I've installed quite a few garage doors (since i do construction), but whenever our crew needed more of the specialized tensioning to be done, we would subcontract that out in a heartbeat. The garage doors guys always would tell us stories about homeowners who would attempt to adjust the springs themselves. Half the time it involved loosing half a digit…the other half of the time it involved loosing the whole digit. Lots of degloved fingers, half torn off finger, smooshed flat fingers, and sometimes head wounds as well. Pro tip-set up a video camera before hand…you know, just in case you want to capture some internet worthy video carnage. A garage door guy costs much less than a trip to the ER. Definitely be careful!

So I was using the orbital sander to take off about a millimeter off of this head before I put it on the block. That would give me about .5 mm ring, and the sander started whining in a really bad way and stopped!

So I took it apart, and the orbital bearing was frozen solid. I coaxed it clean with some pre-solve degreaser, and regreased the bearing, put the dust cap back on, and put it back together. Voila, it's fixed

Now back to sanding the head...

Hey it was cheap and had a title.

What is it? It looks automatic??

I'm gonna go with a '97 PC800. Just a Wikipedia-enhanced guess.

It was Honda's answer to a question no one really was asking.

Lol, you are a man after my own heart. Just finished JB welding the arm of my HF mini belt sander back together for the third time. It's a $50 tool, but I guess I do it just for sport.

I figured you bought it because you were under the minimum weight to be a Burgman owner.

Ha, it ain't no Burgman.

It's the beginning of a new day.

Bet they all had a good laugh making this scene...

Nice! A friend had the newer Deauville. Couch on wheels. Question is, which is uglier?? The Hondas or the BMW R1100RS??

got a replacement Arai helmet - you don't really take stock of how the liner wears in until you put the new one on and go hmmmmm.... that's quite a bit tighter!

Spent a fair bit of yesterday taking down the torsion rod, identifying all the worn parts, hunting down replacement hinges and sourcing roller bearing nylon rollers. Parts were still arriving via Amazon at 5A this morning.

Replaced all the rollers and hinges. Went and picked up new bearings, spring and a torsion rod this afternoon.

We finished celebrating Christmas this evening and I have a club ride in the morning. Then I'll finish installing the new rod, spring and bearings. Not to the danger part yet and the crap in the garage has definitely added a layer of difficulty to the task; only have ~2 feet to work with. The fact that the rod is almost as long as the garage is deep hasn't helped either. At least I should be back in business tomorrow night.

Once this is resolved, I am SO gonna make time for a garage purge...

You made my day! Another twisty fan out of the closet. Off the top of my head ; SoCalGuy, sdjohn, az_slynch, Greasy?, V oodoo?, BajaRob,
chandlerman has got to be hiding one somewhere and won't admit it!

Also...nope.

My first ever scooter may have been a Honda Spree, but that was the beginning and the end of my twisty experience.

When I worked on that LX this spring, I kept braking when I tried to shift gears while riding it across town to give it back to the owner.

Ha Rob, the Pacific Coast only looks like a twisty. It's a 5-speed shifty, 800cc V-Twin, shaft drive. Basically a Shadow covered in plastic. It was supposed to appeal to guys who commuted to work in suits (hence that goofy commercial). It's quiet as a mouse and rides like an Accord. It was a wacky concept, has a cult following. It's a hoot.

Wow! I didn't even catch that. That sucker is sleek! You're still in the closet then. 🤣

I've got a Yamaha Vino twisty too

Last club ride of the year. About 110 miles, nothing crazy. Took the scenic route south to Madera Canyon and had a decent lunch at El Rodeo in Green Valley. Scabby-badger didn't miss a beat.

Finished the door assembly, just need to tension the spring. Decided to pin that for the morning. I had enough fun getting the torsion rod reinstalled; even steel tubing gets hella wobbly when it's 16+ feet long and stabilizing it enough to slip through a bearing is challenging.

You just made the list, buddy! 😝

There's an 85 year old man at my airport that rides around on one. It's so loaded up from only going 10 to 15mph, you can see his smoke trail from the farthest part of the field!

My rod wasn't bent so I was able to reuse it. I thought it would be more substantial. Seemed like a flimsy piece of 3/4 EMT tubing. I had two pieces of round bar stock that fit the tensioner and had no trouble setting the springs. You bet I made sure the fixing screws were tight!

Nasty carb day.
(from the rally 200)

Our spring broke in the middle of the night. It scared the shit out of us.

He's got a piaggio twisty hiding in that garage….

My first twisty was a 1965 Rabbit Superflow 601, 200cc on 8" wheels. Always made a point of crashing the "no twisty" parties. Still have an LX190 that is perfect for running around town and the LX200 that is still not done after 15 years.

If you don't have an ultrasonic cleaner, maybe this is a case for one.

Of course, I keep swearing that I'm going to get one after messing with yet another nasty carburetor. It has yet to happen.

Hoping that carburetor is not a harbinger of the state of the rest of the engine.

Your tinkering with the LXes, along with the work done by Bluecloud and Dynagrego is the sort of stuff that got me interested in finding a project LX in the first place.

Finally getting my cylinder head back from the porting shop. We really had to fiddle around with it to make big valves work. The proprietor was really patient with the idea of trying to get some decent flow out of that two valve head.

JFC it's the tip of the iceberg amigo.
I think it was parked in an open barn for who knows how long... Since the 90's? Pretty sure it was the backstop for all the lawn trimmings for decades. As much mulch as Vespa if you will.

Piston is stuck.. fins are broken... but I don't see any cracks in the cases (yet). Hope it can be recovered! Sat for years without a cylinder head. Jug was full of leaves and debris. Eh, will give it the beans and see what shakes out.

Ultrasonic... have and recommend. 5 Stars.

Recommendation Duly Noted.

As for the engine, what the hell is wrong with people who leave cylinders exposed to the elements? How hard is it to slap a head on a two-stroke single?

Sorry amigo, I hope the innards are in a better state!