Modern Vespa

Ok...short story..smeared key and crank on the Super is fubar.....allegedly. Turned to the expert on good-ol "Merican make-it-work"....#Voo doo. He suggested a fix and I hooked SoCalGuy.....

Check-um bra.....

Named the VoodooAussieIndoBodge experiment. Honoring all of you who do it yourselves...

Pleased with the results and will update but just had to share our community boner...

So so stoked. Thanks to voodoo the DIY sage, SoCal my bro..and all of youse....

lap the flywheel to the crank to get the tapers to match best they can

File this under righteous JB Weld repairs... the epoxied keyway is near perfection. We'll know soon enough if it holds. I'm giving it a high probably of success.

Fingers crossed brother!

Thank you for the compliments. I think....

Holds? What 'holds', it only locates, right? But yeah, hope the JB holds its shape, stays on & stays hard. Viagra, anybody?

The fresh lapped taper torqued on tight is gonna do the heavy lifting here.

Way to go, looks like it just might work! After you lap it good, remember that you need to set a new TDC mark now and time it from that. You need to set your point gap first, then do your timing w/ Robot's method using a battery & hi watt lamp across the points to detect when they open.

Advantage this way is you won't need to fully torque the FW nut every time you pull it to make an adjustment, just get it tight. Torque it proper when you think timing's right & fire it up to verify w/ a timing lite and BE SURE to TORQUE IT EVERY TIME if you are gonna kick the motor over.

Or this again, but likely worse w/ that bodgey JBWeld shit you got in there.

Loctite Taper-Lock! That ort to fix it

Good advice all. The taper shall be lapped prior to installation of the new flywheel.

For interest's sake, the red stuff in the "before" pic was the prior owner's attempt to Loctite the key in place. It was rock hard and had to be chipped out.

well done!

Any tips on lapping it in situ? Is it possible that the grinding compound could ruin the seal? That stuffs like mechanical kryptonite

if you go light on the grinding paste (as you should) it should not come too close to the seal. then a skilled hand can remove any excess without risk to the seal.

But I'd still put a nice fillet of grease between the seal and crank, just to be safe, maybe put it in gear or put a piston stop in to keep things from rotating and messing up the grease.

Thanks for the tips! Keep em coming... Picking up the new flywheel and stator tomorrow. It will be a Points setup with 12v capability. Want to button up quickly but Might be a couple weeks before this gets totally done as work is interfering yet again.

I've just had a similar thing happen to me on the clutch side, I was wondering if this would work if I tried to repair it in this manner. I understand that aa locking nut wih 40 Nm torgue must be applied and that the woodruff is only there for the alignment, would this be possible?

Hi all, enjoying following this thread. I've seen JBW used for a lot of things but none like this! Has anyone done such a repair that can report how it's held up after several years or distance ? Thanks

@Dudley, if your keyway looks similar, why not try....lets see a pic.

@springer....i plan to ride blue mucho after this fix....so can let you know.

New flywheel and stator purchased and now.just need the time to lap and install...

I'm very skeptical that a fix like this would work on the clutch side, there's no taper here(like on a smallframe motor), so the key is doing most of the work and the key is much larger to deal with the load. Any JBWeld in there would be hammered pretty hard and you've got problems if the key starts to get loose. On the flywheel side there's no hammering on the key if it's properly tight on the taper and it's not transmitting power to the back wheel.

Meanwhile I'm waiting for modkuo to get the lead out so we can see if he gets spark and find out if his new FW stays put.

Vodoo thanks for your reply, it's just what I thought to be honest but i've ordered a new crank anyway.

Yeah come on modkuo what's taking so long?

Ok..done and it runs! Brought blue back from so cal guys fix it emporium. Ditched the Bajaj electrics for 12 volt points setup. Put the smaller 20-20 carb on to relieve the sputter, rejetted, Retimed and it's running great with the pinasco kit. ***properly torqued flywheel V oodoo!**

Thanks for everyone's input and advice! Thanks to SoCalGuy as always, his toolbox and brain are a boon to mankind

Well done guys! Good to see it back on the road and minding its manners again. Now I know it works, I'm gonna have to try this myself on a very sloppy keyway I've been putting up with.