Modern Vespa

Today the neighbor kid who helps me with yardwork and more wanted a small trailer for his zippy little GoPed scooter. Well OK, no problem, we can use this old lawn mower axle & wheels, an old chunk of steel tubing, a few bits of scrap and a plywood deck I happen to have just laying around.

It was a fun day!

I love this! Great job.

I can hear this guy thinking: "Hmmm, it'd be cool if I had a trailer for my badass scooter. But how and what should I do? I know, I'll go ask that fashion maverick with the sweet camel hair coat that rides all those bitchen Vespas. He'll know what to do!"

Here's the next challenge 60mph on GoPed. Look at the curly pipe on that scooter.

I want one and have no idea why https://goped.com/super-gsr46r/


https://goped.com/super-gsr46r/

that's worth at least an honorary Go Plaid right there!

My old boss had a goped. Every time I'd ride it any distance and my feet would be numb from all the vibration.

The Spanish got used for someone's wedding…

2 people on the center stand?? Ay caramba.

Nice to see it getting used, what motor is in there?

That was my thought exactly!

You can see it is pretty far forward…

My thought too, and that is why I like those stiffening plates on all my scoots.

That scooter sure is a beauty....

The Spanish is a beauty, I saw it at greasy's and almost tried to sneak it out

Meh, they probably weigh 250 combined.
5 minutes of pics, I suspect it'll be fine.

Stop Thief! 😁

Re: motor
No engine in it yet. Just a P200 case half to make it a roller. Have a rally 180 lump waiting to go in.

Ah still using the ghost engine. 0hp

it's turbo powered!

turbo-juice that is!

you sit and steer, I'll push.

Beautiful picture. Congratulations to the newlyweds!

A friend posted this on a private group we have. Crazy Italian guy trying things with fuel delivery...

what exactly might be going on there?? 3 fuel supplies? maybe one is a return?

Yes, one is definitely a return line...

Power Jet, but for SI Carbs!

dial a jet mounted in the carb box lid pointing down the center of the carb... but the feed would need from the float bowl not the fuel supply side.

I rode my 2005 PX to church this morning and finally reached 20,000 miles! I took a pic of the speedo while i was riding...in traffic...while it was raining. It was a miracle that i didn't crash. I was hoping to get a pic with the speedo needle at over 70mph, but the traffic was too heavy at the time. And FYI, I calibrated my speedo needle to be 100% accurate a long time ago.

The back story in the scooter is that my buddy bought the (US market) 2005 PX150 brand new off the lot back in 2005. He commuted around on it for a couple years. Eventually he wanted to sell it when it had only a couple thousand miles on it. I bought it and immediately swapped in E start 200 EFL cases and a stock cast iron top end. This PX has always been my secondary scooter to ride so the mileage is comparatively low when compared to my stock P200 (which is my primary go to scooter).

Amen!

65 one handed in the rain playing with your phone???
I'd have to agree, probably a good thing you were going to church.

My order of M8 extended (coupler) nuts arrived today from Mcmaster. I used to have a bag of them in my shop, but i haven't been able to find them for the past year. Since i didn't want to loose this bag of nuts as well, i figured that the best place to put them was next to my stash of cylinders and cylinder heads...which is exactly where i found my lost bag of nuts...derp

FYI, i use the long nuts on all of my cylinder heads. They're easier to remove and install than a standard length nut.

The perfectly logical place to stash the bag of nuts!

In addition to continuing Smallstate fun, I spent a little time yesterday sorting out the rest of the fleet. I finally, after maybe a year, spent the five minutes to replace a cracked sight glass on the Sprint, so it's now back up and running. It took longer to clean up the 2t oil that had leaked all over the place than to replace the part.

This is also the scoot where the Malossi 210 wound up and I hadn't been riding it because it never shifted right after I swapped in an EFL gearbox. A while back, I realized that when I did the gearbox swap, I'd accidentally replaced the non-EFL gearbox with...another non-EFL gearbox . So I'd swapped that back out at the time, but never test-ridden it because I'd stolen the tires for the white Stella while its new shoes were on order, then later onto the Smallstate for a bit, then never put them back.

So I had to put tires back on it. And a seat, which I stole off the green Stella that currently has no motor. But after all that, I was ready to test ride.

And of course it was out of gas. After dithering about whether to put a half gallon or gallon in it for mixing purposes, I remembered it was *autolube*, so I just splashed some gas in the gas tank and oil in the oil tank, and rode it.

I'd forgotten how different the P200 feels versus a small block largeframe. I'd guess off the butt-dyno that it's about 17-18 HP, so about the same power as the VBB, but much smoother power. And it's completely different than the Smallie, of course.

The only love the VBB needed was pulling the AFR off it so it's no longer draped in ugly black wires. Good-to-go.

The GL is having its recurring fuel line/bubble/etc issue, but I ran out of time for that. I know the line is too long, so am going to replace the black rubber line with a properly sized no-kink Toyo line that I can see through and hopefully fix this issue once and for all. There's an arch in the line where it comes up to enter the carb, and I suspect that gets air in it and then doesn't want to flow correctly, even with the pump. It's been an intermittent issue with that motor for as long as I've had it, I just never quite get around to fixing it. I think the real fix is replacing the nipple on the carb with one that points sideways rather than up, but that's a lot more work (and risk of trashing the carb) than I'm willing to sign up for right now.

All-in-all, a successful afternoon in the workshop and it's nice to know all the bikes in the fleet are in running shape again.

^^^^
Solid!


A great weekend in Texas. There is a small rally that has been held in Crocket Texas the last five years (minus a covid year) on Guy Fawkes Night. Crocket vs Fawkes has been an absolute treat every time I have been. Hosted by a Stephen and Carol Stringer, two top humans, and always attended by a quality crew of Hooligans and reprobates from across the state.

Sadly, this looks to be the last year for this event, but what a great run.

Alright… which one of you wrote this?

https://www.hagerty.com/media/advice/a-few-things-to-know-before-you-steal-my-914/?utm_source=PaidSocial&utm_medium=Traffic&utm_campaign=DearThief


This speaks to me on soooo many levels as a Vespa owner… make me want a 914… almost.

Guy looks like chandlerman...

lol

I was literally laughing out loud while reading this. That's not me, though.

It does! He must be my brother-from-another-mother.

Sounds like most of the parts are there.

It's fixable.

Just needs a little love, that's all.

Year's ending. Parts at multiple machine shops and I'm not getting my resolutions done. Feck.

I drove to San Diego the Wednesday prior to help a friend pick up a POS Vino. Seriously, who drives 865 miles for a Vino?

Today, I fixed some trash for one of my machinist's charity cases. Then I lit him up about my parts. He has until next Friday.

I need one of my shifties running.

I was lol'ing at the only the high beam works….
It really does sound like he's talking about a Vespa

The description of the gear shift search wobble of uncertainty was a classic.

Kristian at bar Itallia on leaving his scoot in front of his shop: "who is going to steel a bike they can't figure out how to ride?"

That guy looks like Chandlerman!!

I had to read that story to my wife. She's been in plenty of my sketchy rides and was recounting the various quirks, like:
Turn the radio off going up the grade,
Start the car, then remove the key.
Jiggle the brake handle wether it's been set or not
Turn the lights on, then off, then on
Pull the lever for the hatch, then Fonzy it to open
If lots of traffic, wind up first and go straight to 3rd.
Forget reverse
Etc, etc.

We had a good laugh....

Hahahaha.
Yes.

Great story. I've owned a slew of cars like this ... MGs, Triumphs, Alfas, a few Bugs, Ghias, and Transporters ... all so beat up and quirky as to be virtually theft-proof. I never locked any of them (half of them didn't have doors that locked ... some didn't even have doors). In fact I got into the habit of just leaving the keys under the driver's seat. None were ever stolen.

Later in life, when I could afford nicer rides, that habit came back to bite me.

this is literally the current state of the headlight on my smallie right now! This is my same logic. I figure fuel tap off is all the anti theft I need.

And, yes, he's my brother from another mother, for sure!