Modern Vespa

My brother asked me to fix up his 2004 Stella after a wreck. Something goofy with the electric work. You turn the ignition and the electronics (headlight, turn signals etc.) may come on fine, may not come on at all, and may come on goofy- like turn signal comes on but doesn't click. Electric start works when everything else works, otherwise it does not. Plenty of power when it decides to cooperate -- battery is brand new.

You can always get it to work after 30 seconds or so by turning the switch back and forth a few times and/or using the kick starter. I personally wouldn't care that much, but he wants to sell it. One thing I know with certainty in this world, the one time it doesn't start at all is when someone comes over to test drive it.....

Stella's don't have a kill switch that can be turned off permanently. They have a kill button which works as long as you are pushing in. It is working fine.

Is the ignition jacked up? Do I need to replace? I'll drop an engine any day of the week, but whenever I get into the front wiring of a scoot it's a horror show....

Thanks much!!!

Sounds very much like a grounding issue - the whole bike is affected. Have a good look at the battery connections.

their wiring was pretty crap. i suspect switches/controls of handlebars have a loose wire, mine did crazy stuff like this, it was due to wires being too short & pulling when turning etc.

also; remove horncast & check for the melted GREEN wire.

Thanks guys, I'll start with the ground and then move on to see if the green wire is melted.

I'm not super familiar with Stella's, but as far as I can tell there is some law which dictates that 100% of the scooter cannot work at any given time -- there must always be at least something minor going haywire.

Of course, after 36 years the wiring on my P-Series ain't all that great either!

My '05 Stella had a lot of problems with the wires rubbing where they run from the headset to the neck. I've had to pull and replace most of the wires through there at one time or another and it's always an intermittent failure like that.

For example, the horn would sound every time I turned left as that wire pulled tight. You'll probably want to open up the horncast and see what else is jacked up in the Gordian Knot of wiring they stuffed into there, too.

Man, the idea of the horn sounding every time you turn left is totally hilarious -- as long as it isn't your scooter which is doing it I suppose. But thanks for sharing that, it makes me feel better about having to tear into this over the weekend.

It ain't the taking apart, and it ain't the wiring work -- it's the misery of trying to hold all of those wires in there while I try to line up the screws to put the cover back on whatever weird rat's nest container I'm looking at. Gives me the shivers just thinking about it.

And now the front turn signals are taking turns not working -- or maybe it's always the same one and I'm cracking up.......