Modern Vespa

My buddy has an Atomic Fireball that he bought from Bald John, but it's been down for quite some time. Engine was last built as a Polini 177 with a 60mm Mazzy crank. He blew it up often enough that we've dubbed it the Epic Failball. I blame the continued use of sketchy Indian bearings.

I forget what the number is; it's sat for so long. I do remember that the bum stole my yellow P's seat for it.

A little from column A and a little from column B.

Epic Mothball

My brother bought this one up in Oregon about a month before he passed in 2021. I went up there to deal with his apartment, gave lots of parts and half projects to the local scooter and moped guys but packed up the Stella, Derbi, and Motobecane to ship home.

I was riding the Stella and Derbi regularly until fall of 2022 when I got hit on the Derbi. I was off my feet for over six months and out of work for almost a year, Derbi went to the scrapyard.

I guess the Stella has only been down for 4 years then? Only took about five minutes of fiddling to get her fired up.

I still don't have it registered. Oregon DMV never got back to me on the process, I'm going to have to push harder to get that done.

My brother and I riding dubs at the 2019 Moped Army National Rally in Portland on his Kymco People 50. That sucker had no problem pulling at least 500 pounds of sweet Southern lovin' around Portland. Pulled up to the meetup spot and everyone looked at me like I had three heads when I flipped up my visor, threw up devil horns, and shouted "THATS RIGHT!!! WE ALABAMA GAY MUTHAFUCKAS!!!!"

Yep. After the last explosion, I tore it down, replaced the bearings with NTNs, bonded the clutch side in with Loctite bearing compound and had the crank trued. It was ready to reassemble, but he lost interest in it, so it sits.

Which is sad, because I'm pretty sure he's blown his Zuma up more times but he still loves it.

Twist n go scoots have their place.

While I had covid and was running an insane fever and couch bound I went on a delirious eBay binge so I have a fresh LML 150 on a shelf for if I ever grenade the Stella engine.
For months after that I was getting random packages from overseas that I didn't remember ordering.

switch install...

You may wanna scrape the paint off the top of that screw hole to give you a better grounding surface

Stator wiring and coffee.

You need one of these when working on Vespas…

What switch is that? Looks interesting.

I've modified the stock switch to convert the off/pilot/on switch to turn signals, but I'd rather have something like yours, I think.

Also, no two work exactly the same way, so I get to re-learn every time I switch bikes.

Am I the only one who removes those kludgy jackets from the connectors?

Or you could do what I do and just get proper crimped connectors, not crush connectors.

Why? Even with my crimp tool I have had spade connections come loose. Example: pulling a wire from the CDI. (A little bit of insurance.)

Also... preventing shorts... when stacking ring connectors sometimes wires don't seat well in the junction box channels and the covers prevent incidental contact between wire groups that shouldn't touch.

MHO, YMMV

Crimp, solder, then heat shrink tubing.

fair enough, but I dunno … i've found that those insulators are more of pain than they're worth. i like qa's technique. if the rings aren't seating or shorting in the junction box, try a different size or style. wiring in the box should be as compact possible.

i hate wiring enough as it is, and those clumsy insulators not only take up too much space - especially after you mash them down - they also obscure the connection.

ok sorry. rant over. having just installed a Vape i had to vent.

I always remove the bit of plastic and use a crimp tool that rolls the metal in. Cheap crimp tool with the right form serves me well for many years before I splurged on the fancy ones.

I did that for one of the bullet connectors and ended up making it harder to pull out/disconnect lol Thank you, your feedback is much appreciated! I was staring at that pic for the longest time...I couldn't put my finger on what it was trying to tell me LOL! It's the mo-switch mini https://www.motogadget.com/en-us/products/mo-switch-mini It only works with electronic button controls, I'm using the mo-relay+ https://www.motogadget.com/en-us/products/mo-relay-plus The switch can operate fine with the other half removed which is what I did.
The wiring is interesting, instead of being switched directly, the switch button connects to ground completing the circuit. Which is why I got tripped up over diode current flow which flows to switch, not away from it.

Fathers day sale 10% off until the 18th https://www.motogadget.com/en-us

What is the little plate in the back of the switch housing? How!!? How do you remove it? All the ones I have seem to be made of the toughest plastic!

Razor blade and a lot of grunting. I do the same.

I have a couple pairs of good quality crimpers. The crimps have two sets of tongues. One pair of tongues bite into the insulation and the other into the wire.

Once I got a little practice, I found that i pretty much can't pull the crimp off the wire.

It's the top part of the fabbed switch bracket. The bolt fastens switch bracket in the back to the front one, using the small ridge on bottom of switch housing to hold them together in place. The rubber piece in upper right corner of switch housing holds the right side of front bracket down when switch gear is screwed on. Pretty much only way to fasten that side without modifying switch housing. I used a good old fashioned stitch cutter/ripper...I had to go very slow cutting few mm at a time to avoid cutting a wire...and stabbing myself lol

Thanks again for the feedback about routing the wires! Turns out I got to route another wire to rear brake switch for a front brake light switch. I just about soiled my pants when I found out there was no front brake light switch installed...after I took first ride on it lol With front disc brake I use rear brake only when necessary...

I really don't think a stitch ripper would touch the plastic on one of the crimp fittings. I wonder if the ones available here are harder?

Glad the wire routing turned out well for you. It can be a really painful job.

Did you have to modify the motogadget switch? The ones I saw were a full circle made to fit on the handlebar.

I grab the plastic with dikes and twist while pulling.

more recently I just buy them here without the plastic: https://www.vintageconnections.com

I wouldn't be surprised if those who've been ripping terminals off wires inadvertently were crimping the terminals wrong, i.e. all on the copper wire. The part that digs into the insulation actually goes so far as to reach the wire, and secures the connection in a big way.

The colored terminals you crush are fine for roadside repairs to get back home, but shouldn't be part of a proper job in the workshop imo.

Which ones? 🙂

Noice!!!👍😄

Good stuff! I was looking all over for a site like this, thanks for posting! I just put in an order and I'm going to redo the connections. It'll be a nice improvement. Thanks!

Thursday I decided to ride all the way to Loreto BCS in one day from my house. It was only 905 miles total. I started at 2:30 am and arrived about 5:30 pm. Then i was invited to go fishing at 6 am the next morning. After fishing, mass quantities of Tecate were consumed and plenty of dancing Huapango till 2 in the morning. I was a little tired.

905???? Holy frig, my back hurts just thinking about that

Woooh, wild man!

Damn Rob.
Great effort.
And by that I mean It must've been back breaking to carry the local general stores trophy fish all the way down the rocks to pose for this pic. Amazing!

905 miles. U mean like, miles miles?
On a Vespa?
In a day?
Pls tell me u r on the Harley.

I like the Ham shirt

💯

Just the ride down sounds brutal to me! You averaged over 60 and I'm sure you made stops along the way. What was your highest speed and how long did it take you to finally drag your ass back home ?

Also, nice fish there!

Yes, I was definitely riding the Dyna. That fish is staged at a particular place for people to pull down to the waters edge for photo opps.🤣🤣🤣

I averaged a solid 80 but at times I got up to 110 mph. I lost some time at the border getting my visa because the computer system was down. I had to drive to the other crossing and do some creative driving in order to get to the immigration building.

That fish took about 30 minutes to land on the boat. Im still in Cabo and will head back to Loreto for some more fishing soon. The dorado have shown up too.

I rode the Stella today because it's rainy and it has the lap blanket on it. The trip in was uneventful, but when I went to go home, the clutch was stuck in, so I couldn't even start it.

Went home and got tools plus a spare clutch cover, brass plunger, and pressure plate. Back to the office where I laid it over in the parking garage, pulled the tire And clutch cover and determined the clutch plunger had more-or-less shattered.

Replaced the plunger, buttoned it back up, gave it a kick ...and still nothing. Shit.

So I headed back home, but about two blocks down the road, it occurs to me I didn't reset the clutch cable. Loosen up the pinch bolt and it slides back a few millimeters, so I tighten it back up, kick it, and all is well again.

It'll get a more thorough inspection and an oil change once it's back in the shop, but I really could have done without that little side quest.

All's well that's probably going to end well, though

I feel like if the Stella didn't have that lap blanket, you'd never ride it!

Glad to hear you didn't push it home.

Hope that's that, you wouldn't want another counter reset now... 🤞🏻😁