Modern Vespa

Today I started Vespa lessons for young Fritzi who is most eager to ride pillion soon.

He lives w/ my new neighbors who have been admiring my Vespas, she first then him. So this afternoon hubby took a spin on white Super and he returned wearing the BIGGEST Vespa grin ! I am looking forward to this!

Today I upgraded my scooter storage 🤪

Very nice! Is the one next to the smallie ( 2nd from left) a GL? The one with the big butt?

Thats too many scoots for one person. I'd be happy to keep the smallie run in and tuned up for you.

I'm betting that most of us here have that many scooters hoarded...I mean treasured away in our shops and garages...or living rooms for that matter!

Took me a while to find all nine, but finally yep. Nice herd & a nice storage setup, custom platform on a car lift?

What a brilliant idea to optimize your storage space.

It is a SEA special. But the title says it's a GS. It was so cheap I couldn't pass it up . It's been debodged, and runs really well.

I've been riding that scoot since 1982, it's one of the few I will probably never give up.

I see what you did there

Living room thing was just during the assembly phase when it was -25'c outside

Now they are all happily tucked outside ready for riding. Took the white sleeper for a spin today and came to a conclusion thst it is literally impossible to keep the front wheel on the ground when accelerating on 1st gear. Tries to pull it up on 2nd also but that can be coubtered by leaning forward.


Alsl swapped the worn out points to the orange one today. Got some EFFE's from Germany along my last order. Hopefully it was the last maintenance for the old 150 engine and next step will be to swap the VR-One engine in.

Home made car lift , with home made scooter platform.

I'm guessing the scoots on top won't get out much….

It takes about 5 minutes to lower them. They see about 500 miles a year each, but there is always at least 2 that need something adjusted or fixed at any given time.

Only two of nine is pretty good. I have 5 of 6 running right now, but only three (and a half--one needs a new cruciform) of them are rideable right now. One has no motor, but the others all at least start and move under their own power.

That's why I have two and have fought the urge to get another, it would have to be a handlebar or smallie without a rusted out floorboard, to make me really interested.

Worked on the $100 Honda C70 some more last night and this morning. The more I look, the more I understand why it was a $100 bike.

Filled and set up the battery last night. Faffed around with the turn signals until they worked. Made the horn do the meep-meeps too. Found the bulb for the headlamp and taillamps were blown. Also witnessed the rectifier turning into smoke when it tried to charge the battery; lovely.

Pulled the rear wheel this morning to change the tire and tube. Found out the rim strip was melted electrical tape. Sent my buddy to find a rim strip while I set to work replacing the drive chain and sprockets. Things were going well until I noticed the new sprocket seemed to be at an odd angle to align with the front one. This is the point where I noticed the left leg of the swingarm was bent...crap. spent the next two hours using my truck's jack, the propane torch, a swatch of 3/16" steel and a claw hammer to heat, bend and beat the swingarm back into shape before re-bending the whole swingarm into the correct shape to accept the rim, brake plate and axle spacer while keeping the rim aligned with the the chassis.

Heck of a lot of effort to forge a Passport.

^^^Solid work there.

I am 3 weeks waiting for parts on the SS so grabbed the primavera outta storage to fix the clutch and swap in a banana exhaust.

Was a day of failures. I could not find any way to reach the far bolt of the exhaust elbow no matter what I tried. (Any tips from folks that have tricks would be much appreciated.)

Then removed and rebuilt the clutch. Proceeded to slice my fingers to pieces reinstalling only to notice the bell on the new inner plate was all outta round AFTER I finally got the damn thing in place… Crushed in shipping? Maybe I bent it while rebuilding? IDK… but I was so aggravated that I popped a beverage and called it a day.

Will rebuild it in the morning and reinstall.

Something very satisfying about priming parts.

Swing the motor down for access, wayyyyy easier

My first foray into motorized 2 wheel vehicles was a Passport I pulled from a ditch, got titled, rebuilt, rode for 4 years and then sold at a break even price. I don't want to know what happened to bend that swingarm but thats some solid ingenuity to get it back straight. In all honesty you could have just bent the other side equally to make it swaged like a fancy bicycle and you'd be considered a genius on the Pacific Rim. Even more than the Vespa, the Passport is meant to be a bike that requires almost nothing to keep it alive. You can service 99% of the bike with the sack of rusty metal that counts as a tool kit with these bikes. Even at an upgraded 88cc they are woefully underpowered and the front suspension is terrifying but I also am hard pressed to think of a more fun bike to hammer. I once dragged a peg on a turn and then realized I was only going 18mph. Its been a chase to recapture that thrill.

Hal

I like your thinking. Any worries on the wiring or control cables is you drop it more than say, 45 degrees?

Carb has to come off but otherwise no concerns for a long way down.

Having a few good battles with a bike is a sure way to build rapport with it. Some day, you may even cuss fondly at it. Keep swinging, but know when it is time to put down the wrench and pick up a cold one.

John called it. I'd hang the motor too. I'll keep that in mind when the V90 hits the lift.

I feel you on clutch hell. Getting a straight answer on the Compact's clutch shaft discrepancies is frosting me. It'd be nice to work out the remaining parts so I can reassemble the motor.

This is the only real way to do anything motor related on a smallframe. It's just the carb and the lower shock bolt removed. The gear and clutch cables and junction box all should be long enough to not have to disconnect. Without swinging the engine down, it's pure pain and suffering all around.

No, not at all. The engine will swing down to a point where it stops and bottoms out on the edge of the frame. The wires and cables have enough slack to remain in place unless someone installed wires and cables that are too short. Even the intake pipe can freely swing through the frame hole with the carb off, as John pointed out above. All this also makes getting the rubber bellows in much easier. Of course, I learned all this hard way.

This one is fun, but a bit grating. The same buddy talked me into buying mine for twice the price, without documentation or a hope in hell of running without major work.

I'll share some pictures of a similar '81 Passport that I got a long time ago. Craigslist listing, no pics, crazy market (at the time)...I was at a cousin's wedding so I just sent my buddy the money to buy it.

I got a skeleton with a tweaked frame, crumbling duct-tape seat, perished wiring harness, UV-roached plastics that crumbled at a touch and no cylinder, head or carburetor. And I paid $200 for this turd with no papers.

Almost forgot the farmer-fix run flats. There were no tubes in the tires; they had been stuffed full of old garden hose. Taking those off the rims was a hoot.

I'd put time into disassembly and refurbishment of the subassemblies. It's all but ready to reassemble save for some rare bits and a few performance parts choices. It'll be a next year thing though, my 2022 queue is still pretty full and the slippage on the first two is enough as-is.

A day of learning today.
Mark reading of my woes stopped by this morning and helped me finagle the exhaust elbow on. Patience and experience…. No substitute and Mr poi dog has both in spades.

New clutch is in too. Had to use most of the original as the CIF clutch sat too proud in the basket. Basically the only thing we used out of it was the plates and cork. SMH.

Couple test rides and all is good. The SIP banana really woke the 2 port up.

I'm waiting patiently for the right smallie to come along. I read through these posts to learn from other people's woes.

The SIP banana fits well, adds some good pep, and it's not obnoxiously loud like the Leo Vince.

^^^ Indeed... dig the sound actually. Low and thumpy, but not at all obnoxious. They do come up and worth the wait if you find a straight, (mostly) sorted one.

Is this combined one available for download somewhere?

I sent you the link by PM

Cheers, got it !

I'd like the link to this gear calculator as well. TIA!

Went and bought a ridiculously expensive airless sprayer today.

A few years ago my daughters lead levels were high and in Philadelphia the doctor is required by law to contact the health department which then refers the Lead and Healthy Homes people to your house. So for the past few years we've been slowly remediated the lead in the house. Last week they came out and said we were in default cause we weren't done the painting. Sigh. She only tested high once and has been retested twice since and has "normal" levels. I'm so sick of this BS. It really sucks getting stuck in a government program with no damn way out except she ages out next spring, but they'll be taking us to court before that happens I'm sure. So got a ridiculous sprayer to finish the dumb paint as fast as possible. As an added bonus I can paint a scoot with it!

Friday, I feel your pain. We had a radon gas problem in the house I own. My insurance company insisted on testing it a couple years after we bought as other houses in the area have the same problem The two bedrooms downstairs where deemed uninhabitable. I built these rooms out of an area that was a double deep garage at one point. Since it was built on a concrete slab, there was no way to vent it properly. My only solution was to gut it and seal it. I did the demo work, but another company had to do the sealing, no way around it. Bucks down, I needed to borrow from the bank to finance it. A few weeks after completion got it tested again and it passed. I then had to go about replacing walls, electrical, cabinets, plumbing, etc...and pay off another loan. Nine months later, my girls moved back into their rooms.
I know it sucks, but the important thing is your daughter is safe, nothing is more important than that. Get the painting done and move on to better projects.

In case anyone is interested.

https://modernvespa.com/forum/post2443498#2443498

Currently showing off my calculation on how to make the sprint engine for my vbb work OK on 8's, compared with my stella engine.

Nice sheet! So I assume that that red sections on each gear are the overlap to where the next gear picks up?

I need to dig in a little further to what you've built so I can steal it for my own gearing spreadsheet.

It works like scooterhelp, as far as coloring goes. The red numbers are beyond your max rpm, which you can set based on your kit. You enter the gear tooth counts, the tire circumference, etc. The other sheets have reference info to use gathered from multiple sources (some undoubtedly wrong 🤣)

Replaced the battery in the Primavera. Used the sealed battery pictured and it fits like a glove. Cheap too. It was 19 bucks + shipping vs $60 for the motobat.

(My wife has claimed the Primmy as her own. so I will try and keep it battery for her as long as the old regulator doesn't poop itself. If it goes, I have a back up. If that goes, will conevrt to all AC.)