Modern Vespa

last time i did it i just hit it with a rubber hammer but ur smallie gonna be nice and clean Brother Safis:D

Tonight i manage to fix my smallie, test ride and maybe sleep well for the rest of the night

I was just accelerating away from a stop sign on my way to the train on Monday morning. Smooths street, 25 MPH speed limit. It got run pretty hard over the weekend, though. We might have done some aggressive comparative test rides over the weekend down at Malaprop Motors.. Hah! I think I'd definitely be the winner & all time champion of the "what's the craziest thing you've JD Welded?" contest if I pulled that off.

Just NO! This is a case where JB Weld would be bodging it. Send it to me or maybe qascooter so it can be dealt with properly by REAL welding! Then just use your favorite tool to finish and fit it .

The new axle and cruciform should arrive on Friday, assuming UPS keeps to the estimated delivery date.

The old axle is still stuck in the case due to me being unable to get the hub nut off. All I tried was hitting it with the impact wrench again after soaking with PB Blaster, but it's still irritating.

Tomorrow I'll try again using heat along with PB Blaster, followed by picking up a breaker bar if that fails.

ok, i'll bring a breaker bar tomorrow nite.

I got the hub nut off and the axle out today while taking a break from making powerpoint slides, with a little help from my good friend Mr. Angle Grinder.

That axle clearly led a hard life.

If your whole transmission was still LML, that could have been your problem. Nevertheless, that damage is pretty darn impressive! I ended up upgrading one of my Stella's transmissions to actual piaggio EFL gears.

Impressive! Same thing happened to Subetherbass' VBC original driveshaft (apart from actually breaking).

The driveshaft was not original. I'm not sure who made it.

1st and 2nd gears are original LML and pretty worn, but I went ahead and buttoned the whole thing up and got it rolling again.

Then, I moved on to the Sprint motor. I ordered a new castle nut tool (mine was pretty thrashed) along with a SIP deep castle nut and that thing went on almost as easily as a hex head bolt.

Then, I buttoned everything back up, went to torque the head nuts, and every single one of the damn things stripped out at 16 ft-lbs. Grrrr....

Ordered some M7 time-serts and will get it all sorted back out when they arrive, either later today or tomorrow.

In the meantime, I've decided (with a little prompting from my wife) that I'm going to reduce the size of my scooter stable to just the Sprint & GL. I'm going to convert my spare LML motor back to autolube and put it in the Stella with the 166 on it.

The VBB will get its original motor back, which was running just fine when I pulled it out, it was just slow.

The Sprint motor will go into the GL, which I'm going to do a patina frame and paint the new cowls since they have to be replaced anyway. I'll just need to sort out suspension, rebuild the front fork, and run cables & wiring/lights. sorting out a tank for autolube will be the most challenging part of that project, I expect.

So I have my next few rounds of scooter projects laid out, I just need to execute on them.

I don't understand why you would put a castle nut back in? You have enough build experience... that surprised me CM! Unless you had to wait a week for a good one? M7 nuts/studs have a much lower torque figure than that! 13 seems to be the maximum according to a few sources. I normally only do my 200 M8 studs to 15.
Having said that, I've been guilty of stripping the studs before, most recently in the LML case with the BGM 177. I re-tapped to M8 and put 200 studs in there (worked out because I put a 200 crank in and was using a packer anyway). But I have seen them taken out to M10 with a stud turned down.

A while back, I installed 4 time-serts in my lammy because one of the threaded holes for the head stud was compromised. You just have to make extra sure to get those inserts perfectly square. Don't want to get get the head studs winging out every which way like Tom Baker's teeth.

Six-spring clutch. I'm still on the hunt for a flange nut that will fit it and had the SIP order coming anyway so I tried it out of morbid curiosity. I could probably go the M8/P200 stud route, but am going to go with the TimeSerts for now.

I've always torqued my tuned motors to 16 ft-lbs. Never had an issue before, including on this one.

Oh, well...

Im hoping to learn something here, What would one use if not a castle nut ? stock crank or aftermarket ?

Replaced the center mat on the rally. The old one was not falling off but was badly cracked and worried that water would find its way in.

JB Weld that mat back together

I finally sourced an original battery cap for a GS160. This is a stupid latching system, but you know how it goes. Gotta go original.

You may notice that the tray itself is completed with some aluminum stock. I had to do that because the steel had been eaten away. I'll weld in a replacement someday.

It looked so pretty, sitting in the dappled shade, as I rode down a few hours of back roads to the Drop Zone.



Then I wen't a little too hard down the freeway, and coasted to a stop.



The shadow on the piston looked ominous.



For good reason



Mmm, toasty



And for good measure I've killed the cylinder too.



Yep. Today I.... Bolox.

@GT6, it's kit or 'O' tune time for that scoot. A blessing in disguise?

I would like to say unlucky but that has been running terrible for a long long time. Either air leak, timing or jetting way out. Plug must look sad either way.

The only thing not to do from this point is buy a new stock Meteor piston.
Cylinder looks bad but will clean up if you want to reuse it.

https://www.sip-scootershop.com/en/products/piston+grandsport+200+cc+_12090000

Is that your spark plug seat ? If so, looks like an air leak to me....

Finished three days of riding in southern Oregon

I spent some time re-dialing in the Frankensprint's carb today. Cleaned up the richness from 1/4-3/4 throttle, took the main down a jet and the idle up one.

It's still a little rich (11-ish) on the air:fuel meter, but since I wasn't able to get it out and test it on the highway, I'll call that close enough with some margin for error.

It REALLY made a big difference to not have four-stroking in the 1/4-1/2 range, which is where I do most of my riding. Really woke the bike up, too.

Next up...ride it to the store and get some beer.

Beautiful Rally, beautiful pic. 3 days in the saddle, that's hardcore. I'm officially jealous.

And Chandler, you lost me. I must have missed something. How is your Sprint a 'Frankensprint'?

So today I took my first official ride on 50 special on public roads. Did not disappoint. Pics shortly over here: https://modernvespa.com/forum/post2335494#2335494

I put my Stella motor in it. The Sprint motor was fast, but not as fast, and something is off with it, so it's in the stand, waiting to get its cases split. It has a rattle when it's running that doesn't sound healthy.

I thought about starting on it this afternoon, but it's a little warm out for my tastes.

today i put my motor back in my purple frame

Less of a Frankensprint than a Chersprint I think.

Fixed the broken exhaust hanger on the MotoBi

My PX200 got mostly 7's on its odometer this evening.

And yesterday during heavy evening traffic on a fast winding uphill 4 lane highway, my right side mirror started to pivot towards me. I reached over with my left hand to pivot it back in place...at the exact same time that it fell of into my hand. Apparently it just randomly snapped off. I'm guessing vibration killed it. Now to get the rest of the threads out!

Duct tape will fix that in no time!

Nah, Shoe Goo!

You know he's going to ignore us both and just use JBWeld, though.

I'd figure I'd use a wad of Bazooka Joe bubble gum to fix it.

Beer can! Get drunk, & Bodge it

Watching this YouTube video made me laugh through the entire thing.
https://youtu.be/m0uTSEwgZcM

This guy has a P that is blowing headlight bulbs. Instead of researching the issue and getting a regulator he buys a DC light set and installs. Seems he's mechanically inclined but just want to jerry rig the thing. Regulator is still bad but oh well.

Did some cleanup behind the battery and finally replaced the rubber bumpers

when changing the vacuum pipe on my fuel pump, stripped the thread on the crankcase side and had to strip the engine to helicoil.....

:unhappy

I'm out of town right now, but over the weekend, I went to split the cases of the Sprint's motor to see what's ratting in there (current theory: cush drive springs).

Aaaand....the SIP Performace/VAPE flywheel is stuck on. Destroyed not one, but two flywheel pullers trying to get it off. next up is grinding down a three-armed gear pulled to fit under the central section of the flywheel and trying that. If that doesn't work, it'll be time to get destructive.

On the bright side, I replaced the shift cables in the Sprint and it made a huge difference in how shifting feels. Lastly, realized that the irritating rattle I was hearing is the front fender crest. Currently, the repair is a bodge of sticking tape under the ends of the crest, because I can't seem to get the pinch-locks to tighten up. Anyone got any advice on that? Would pulling it off and threading the posts so I could lock-nut it on be too extreme?

Overall, though, the bike is really, really fun to ride these days

I was jokingly going to suggest "Shoe Goo", but then remembered that the fender crest is actually a place where Shoe Goo works! Forms a nice rubbery bond that doesn't rattle and comes off easily if you ever want to remove it. Just don't glob it all over the place.

Both the fender crest and rear badge on my 50 special had broken retainers so I went to my most dependable remedy. A small gob of Shoe Goo applied from underneath will hold it securely and eliminate any rattles but can be removed without pain or leaving any trace behind. Also always use it on the leggy badges so I don't have to peen the pegs over in back.