Modern Vespa

The storage bucket under the seat, over the engine, gets fairly hot. I was concerned the heat would not be kind to my camera, etc.... I was thinking of putting some insulation on the bottom.

The question is...would this insulation in any way harm the engine or it's ability to regulate it's running temperature?

Almost as a joke, we could put together some recipe's for cooking on the go! Put your creation in a foil pouch and an hour later when you arrive at your destination...Wallah! Vespa cooked meals! We could generate alot of press.....Scooter Recipe's...Twist and Cook

Doug

I cooked a chicken with my Honda Civic, many years ago.

That poor chicken. Didn't you see the "No Pets" sticker?

Kevin

I don't know if insulation would harm anything, I would not think it would because the engine is air cooled, and there is no air coming from the bucket, but I am no mechanic How big is your camera case? does it fit in your front glovebox? I am looking for a glovebox organizer that fits the LX 150. If its a small unit, that might fit, but if you have lots of lenses n' stuff, then lets hope the Pros answer the insulation thing, sometimes i just put my jacket inbetween my electronics and the bottom, and it seems to do fine.

Scott

There was none on my "Honda Civic".

Hey Doug,

My gut feeling is that you would be better off putting your camera gear in a top box.

As for whether putting thermal insulation on the bottom of the seat bucket would affect engine temperature, think about it this way. Folks routinely put all manner of junk inside those seat buckets. I'm thinking about piles of maps and other paper covered by a rainsuit, which is an excellent thermal insulator. And the stuff inside acts like a thermal insulator just like thermal insulation applied to the other side of the bucket would. So, it makes sense that the Piaggio engineers would not rely on heat transfer through there to keep the engine cool. So, even in the case of your forced-air-cooled LX, I wouldn't worry about that.

But... I'm still thinking about your camera. Is it safe to put that under your seat? Here is how you can figure it out for yourself without any exotic equipment. Grab a bottle of room-temperature water and throw it in the bottom of your seat pan. Go for a long ride (one hour) on a hot day. When you stop for gas, pull the water out, open it, and drop in one of those el-cheapo WalMart meat thermometers. The bottle of water will act as a "heat sink" to hold the temp for a pretty good while, certainly long enough to get a good read with the meat thermometer. Then check the manual for your camera. The manual for my Sony camera states Operating Temperature Range is 32 to 104 F. Storage Temp Range is -4 to 140 F. So, would it be safe to store my Sony under the seat? It'd be too close for comfort.

I'd go the topbox route.

Whew! Hope this helped.

Good points, jrsjr. And, I'd think that too much heat would have more of an immediate effect on the lcd screens of digital cameras before any internals.

Better safe than sorry. Top cases and racks are less expensive than many higher end cameras if you had to repeair or replace them.