Modern Vespa

Not ever. I feel your pain. I have one coming up soon. I bet Bernie got lots of love from you. Great looking dog.

When you can't find a replacement fuel tap, chuck an air fitting on! Love it.

Found evidence of my first vespa ride (1976)
On a 1973 v90 bought new by my grand parents.

Outstanding!

That is a great memory, and it's still living today!

That's amazing

Fantastic! Keep it going.

I meant to update this, but things got busy. We arrived home last Wednesday. The trip was a a success. 7,400 miles in a VW bus. It was scarier than I remember 30 years ago, mostly because of higher speed limits and more traffic on the interstate highways. Also having a variety of gauges giving readings that you only see driving over big mountains and through deserts. After awhile I stopped worrying about it. I ended up sorting out all the electrical stuff properly in Flagstaff, though the work arounds were still holding up. I now consider myself an expert in wilderness auto electrics. A bus does fine on interstates until you hit the Rocky Mountains. Then it's way too slow for safe driving. 2 lane state highways go better. I consider getting a bus home again with the same engine running on all cylinders a major accomplishment. Here are some highlights from the rest of the trip:

Hahaha. Awesome.
The trip should help restore the proper smell of a late 60s early 70s bus.
Your commitment to the authentic is noted and appreciated

Yes yes. This.

A grand adventure indeed.
Especially loved the rusted/primer rear-end of the bus pic.
Bonafide.

The back end and the driver's side cab door are the last things I have to paint. Hopefully before winter. I also have to reshoot the sliding door and passenger side cab door. Had to change paint manufacturers and they don't match.

When my ass stops hurting, I will get back to my Vespas.

I was thinking that it's a good thing that smell-o-vision never caught on. Imagination is sufficient.

The authentic is all I know. I'm no tuner/builder. I don't have the skills to build a Type 4 engine that will go fast without melting. In the end, the not melting part is the most important for getting there and back again. Going fast doesn't actually help much on a trip like this. I built the engine carefully with the best parts I could find and measured a lot to get tight clearances. Had the rotating mass dynamically balanced and put in a get out of the way baby cam.

I miss our Transporter 3, stupid Greek laws didn't allow us to keep it after my father retired (it was registered as a business truck to the shop) so he sold it. It had a Subaru 1.8 Turbo taken from a Leone (EA82T), a five speed gearbox (I think it was from an Audi) and a few other mods (an original VW Golf VDO tachometer, a Renault Traffic power steering retrofitted rack, electric windows, A/C). It was red with the four rectangular headlights front, wide body kit and 16" five spoke aluminum wheels on 225 tires…

That's awesome Orwell. I always thought of getting a barn door bus and putting a 2.5 subaru engine in it.

But after watching you work on yours, I think I'll stick with my scooters and 90s motorhome....

Both the Subaru conversion and motorhome options have crossed my mind many times. Maybe someday. When I no longer have the physical capacity to roll under the bus in desert heat and fix whatever or if I just get sick of it, I will seriously consider those options. So far, I still enjoy the work itself and love driving it. Spending hours doing contortions underneath it to wrench or weld is my yoga, tai-chi, PT. It only hurts when I stop.

The scooters will stay. More manageable in scale, but still the same vibe. The undertaker will be prying a Cush drive out of my cold dead hands.

Orwell, I see this rebuild and trip as an awesome accomplishment. But way above all that is spending time with your sons. The bus can fall apart and rust away, but the time spent with your sons is everything.

Doing a little housekeeping on Bear today. Heard a noise last time e I was riding and when I got home I looked down and my center stand was dangling. I apparently lost one of the brackets! Placed an order for new ones and added a sweet mirror holder for the VNA headset.

This winter I'm planning on trying the SIP speedo again and the auto lube. While I'm doing that I think I'll toss in the short 4th gear I got a bit ago.

Interesting mirror mount interested to hear your feedback. Do you have a link for it?

Many on here, myself included, would agree, wholeheartedly. It's a Zen thing, I suppose, to be able to shut out the noise and work towards a goal, especially of a mechanical nature. The rough part comes in when you start out hurting, but you to go ahead with the project anyway. Rougher yet, is a time that may come, knowing that you should damn well just leave it alone altogether.

I think it wouldn't be too difficult to replicate a couple for our GS's. Looks sharp.

Can't wait to see the mirror installed.

https://www.sip-scootershop.com/en/product/mirror-holder-for-mounting-at-steering-head-screw-left-for-vespa-125-vna-vnb-1-2t_61094600?usrc=Mirror

It's very sturdy. Thick metal, so hoping there's not too much of a shake. Will report back next week when the mirror arrives.

Mounting to headset should be significantly more stable then the thinned out leg shield for vibration.

Will be interesting to see if it helps.

like the mount … just not a big fan of the angle of those mirrors. wonder if you can bend it a bit.

Same. I got a lower rise motorcycle one instead because all the scooter ones sit 3' off the headset

Had to lay the P down to avoid getting smacked by a car coming into my lane.

Low speed luckily. Minor damage.

Of course the at fault driver doesn't have insurance.
(I'm fine.)
Be careful out there.

Glad you're ok and the scoot isn't badly damaged.

Damn, I'm glad you are alright. Running these older machines takes a deft hand and greater awareness of your surroundings than a more modern scoot.

Glad you're alright!!!

Yikes! Glad to hear you're OK.

It's perfectly acceptable to cover the damage with a "Crashing Sucks" sticker.

Were there any witnesses besides the involved parties?

Oh that sucks so bad. Glad you're okay and I'm amazed the other car even stopped. Here in Nashville, hit-n-run is pretty much the norm, even for car-on-car violence.

Dang it. Glad it was minor, but still. Another reminder that motorcycles and scoots are literally invisible to some people.

I have to admit that I tend to look right through motorcycles even though I try not to.

Small, NOS treasure, from Italy…

NOS treasure eh? How about some OOS stuff? I'm resorting my Vespa parts after shedding all my widebody stuff recently. Now integrating a few years accumulation of random stuff in boxes and finally throwing out lots of unsaveable stuff that's just taking up space.

So I was wondering if I had a badge like the ones you just got... Yep but definitely OLD Old Stock that's been used, abused and obviously replaced.

If you have a collection of random badges, please post it up. I'd love to see

Oh bugger. Glad you weren't hurt, and glad it wasn't something more valuable than the P.

After lots of frustrating issues with my Covid-build P210, I was finally getting the carb dialed in. I took it out for a test run and it was running great, pulling strong up to 8600 RPM. But the engine suddenly cuts out, when in gear it sounds like grinding noises from the transmission. I pushed it a mile home and started pulling the engine apart. Piston is fine, if anything I was running a bit rich. Then I notice the flywheel is loose. MFer sheared off the woodruff key. Transmission still makes noises and feels notch when I push the kickstart. This is going to be the fourth time I have to pull the engine in 250 miles.

Any thoughts on what happened and what I will find when I pull the cases? I've never sheared a key before. It popped out with a hammer tap to a flathead screwdriver.

Oh, that sucks dude.

I'm going to guess that the flywheel loosened up and lost its fit on the taper, causing it to shear and shift the timing to the point it lost spark.

But I'm not sure why what you described would be causing transmission grinding, unless whatever gave way in the gearbox which was enough to pop the flywheel loose.

Been engaged in several scooter and scooter-adjacent projects as of late.

We have a multi-club un-rally planned for October up in the Prescott area, so I was finally fixing my '08 Majesty.

I've been chasing an esoteric electrical issue on a friend's GTS; I may post the nerdier bits to the MIU thread or lay out all the gory details in the General Discussion section. The short, short version is that the EFI keeps going crazy at random and coding over an oxygen sensor that's been replaced and the wiring to it had breaks that were spliced. I see the voltage generated by the sensor via GuzziDiag, so I know it's working. Very close to removing the whole harness out of the scoot and giving every bit of it a good metering

Got the Minarelli cases back from the vapor blaster. They look a lot better. Debating having the outer cases polished to deal with some "meh" surface finish on the stator/sprocket cover. At any rate, I can reassemble the bottom end now.

Spent the day modifying a cheap trailer that I got several years ago. It is now ready to haul a Burgman 650 and the long game is to set it up to haul three smaller scooters in a pinch. It's a bit ghetto, but it was much, much cheaper than a purpose built trailer.

chandlerman, your free puppy analogy? This little bastard project probably has moto-parvo on top of being an incomplete basket case. I thought it was better than the Indian, but it's steadily changing my mind. If a friend hadn't gone to the trouble of nabbing it for me as a gift, I'd be considering parting it out now. For reference, our Oregon friends might appreciate that it was designed there: it's a '75 Hodaka Road Toad, Model 99. It could be cool, but time will tell.

Sean, you're at a whole 'nother level of bringing home free puppies. I'm constantly impressed at the variety and decay level of projects you're able to bring back to life--and do it fast.