Modern Vespa

I thought about posting this to facebook out of the gate - so to speak - but frankly - that crowd is fucking useless compared to this rag tag set of grizzled vespa restorers and tuners.
Y'all got the goods. oh - that made me laugh.
Vintage vespa with a sidecar...
Sidecar is code.
Shhhh.

Love the input.
There are options.
There are tradeoffs.

1. plan to glue and screw - using stainless screws - and having them counter sunk and covered. Should stop them from being the conduits of rust - or at least slow them.
2. trade offs with roll/spray/PC. PC might be best for longevity - crap for touching up. Roll gives you a thickness that spray struggles to match. Spray gives you nicer finish/speed. My take - though it can (and may be debated).

Whodat! thanks for the good words. That project you did with a spool gun?!? Such a nice outcome.

All - some great stuff here for solutions.
Too many laughs and good inputs to hit them all.
Bare minimum - puts some swagger in my step when I pull into the PC joint to get a price.
My experience: they price based on how busy they are any given day.
I always say: trying to decide if I should paint or PC. how much?
Their prices are all over the board.
Ray - like the approach for glue prep if I do go PC - thanks!

Wicked tendinitis in my right elbow has slowed the efforts.
Shockingly - I am still employed (by two separate companies) for a day job(s).
Perhaps their reading this - in which case - please for the love of god - put us both out of my misery and just tell me to go.
🙂

More at the weekend.

Lol, FB comment made me chuckle…

I think there's only 1 option for cm2 now…

PC booth build… only logical solution

You hiring interns over the summer? I could fly in…

Oh, you're hiring interns? I can drive down with my own lodging and park this in front of your house - on second thought, my wife wouldn't think she was on vacation, so scratch that.


I'm sure your neighbors wouldn't mind....

Just think how popular he'd be with the neighbors, too! With a little bit of effort, you could make them feel like their $70k gates were a good investment!

Let's just all turn up one day at CM2's place as interns to help with the gates…

Everyone bring their favourite tool…

Can't believe nobody's suggested the true path of hot dip galvanizing.

Good call!

We can build a galvanizing pool in the street by QA's RV and everyone can bring over whatever needs rust-proofing. Invite the neighbors, get a keg, I'll be Ned's son knows some kids with a band who'd love a gig and would work for cheap.

It'll be a big ol' OSHA-noncompliant punk rawk street party!

Last time I visited my sister in Camarillo, CA, I made sure I pulled up, horn a honking, and making all kinds of commotion because I KNOW she doesn't want me parking in front of her house. F that - I'm parking, and staying an extra night just for good measure!

Ahhh, family, there's always one......

My favorite tool is the engine stand I use for running in motors.

I'm sure it'll come in useful… sounds noisy…

Hey Ned, have you considered soundproofing the gates?

But then he couldn't hear us running in motors out by the hot dip pool.

hahaha!

Im just going to PRETEND that they are soundproof, and that I can't see Scott's Winnebago, or Chandlermans engine stand...

Y'all are providing a great deal of help in the usual manner - heavy dose of hazing - with a pinch of life saving advice.

Keep it coming.

If you're going to bolt the wood, don't use any adhesive. Drill the wood at least 1/4" larger than the bolt holes (to allow for expansion/contraction of the wood) or they'll crack.

So what's been you max CHT so far?
Have you looked at the sides of your piston since ROM?

Got to 400. Piston looks good.

400 sounds a little high, isn't that when things come loose really quickly?

Max CHT is 371.
That's 321 in under plug - and I have been pounding it.
Normally - runs in the high 200's in moderate use.
50+ MPH 4th gear lugging will take it to low 300's.
*** I have my CHT gage about 8mm into the head - so close to the combustion. This is not under the plug. It makes a difference.
This thing is happy.

Have taken to riding scoot out to find a patio for coffee/sandwich/beer - depending time of day.
Sometimes all three.
Lord I love spring time here.
Order somethin good.
Lean back low and comfy in my chair.
Soak up some cali sun and let the body just rest.
Serotonin and dopamine.
Fucking glorious.

Come back and get back on either the paying job(s) or the gates - usually both.
More than once - I've had to stop welding to take a business call.
There I am - in the garage - welding helmet flipped up - ear piece in - talking "shop" on Teams.

Side note - who in their right mind thinks 20 people on a conference call is a good use of anyone's time.
When the autopsy where we went wrong - companies allowing more than 3 people on any one given call will be the cancer they discover.

Anyway... about glue and screw.
So my plan is to use a product called extira. its basically MDF - for outdoors.
Made of hardwood fiber and resin.
Supposed to be thermally stable.
What ever that means in reality.

Whodat, Scott, others: do y'all know this product/ have any experience??

Extira - never used it - just looked it up. Looks like good stuff I wonder about the structural rigidity of the stuff.

It'd suck to have the top six or eight inches warp because they don't have a backing support. I guess it all depends on how you install it...

Looking forward.to seeing.it in action

I dunno anything about the stuff either

*greasy has entered the chat with a terribly loud 60's muscle car to do burn outs in and, like ALL the booze*

but also brought a laser level, extra batteries for the impacts and just like, a whole grip of liquid nails.

anyway, jokes aside, I have some experience with trex decking. I've done a few projects with that. it's incredibly easy to work with, but smells god awful when cutting. I have a planter box that a built a few years ago that seems to be holding up fine. never had a call back on any deck I've built out.

I'm a super lame ass and I'd just use mechanical fasteners. for one, you don't get any additional sploosh that looks a sight and the other reason is that if you have to repair or replace it's just a zip-zip and no clean up of the nonsense.

the other stuff, I dunno. I'm a redwood or cedar aficionado. I'd imagine any of the new composites are decent. but you can't go wrong splashing the pot with some kiln dried white cedar or redwood. down here it'll last till you're dead.

some nice ship lap and you're styling.

might know a guy that has some reclaimed and a planer...

on your PC: sundial up in sun valley always did right by me. maybe give them a holler?

That's the best…

People need to do that more… and the sun is free Lol, Oh for sure… meetings where you have 50% or more of the people with nothing to add, they shouldn't be in attendance.

If 20 people need to know about the meeting contents, there are other ways.

I used solid trex on my last house balcony, had to reinforce walls in room below when building addition due to weight. That is some heavy material, maintenance wise it was great, 10 years later it had weathered a bit with no maintenance.

I used to call it meeting paralysis, to many people and nothing gets accomplished.

Twenty people on a call isn't a meeting, it's a presentation.

The best part of being a consultant in a twenty person meeting is that so long as you have a good way of knowing which five minutes of the hour you need to pay attention to, you can get an hour of work done for another customer and they're both happy to pay you for it.

I refer you to the SIMPLE SABOTAGE FIELD MANUAL

I looked at trex.
Extira is a little different.
Was at this fru fru wood place - looking at African Mahogany (could be a stripper name) - and there was a seasoned contractor at another counter, head down, reading through his list, that I could tell was listening to my clueless questions.

What would be the best wood?
Will it hold paint?
What does random length mean?
Board feet?

The salesman basically had no experience.
Just price and quantity.
Midway through my questioning him - I just stopped - walked to the other counter and intro'd myself to the contractor.
"do you have experience with building gates/garage doors?"
"Been doing it for 40 years"
"Could you make some recommendations for me? I'm swimming here"
"Of course - no trouble. You said paint grade right?
Me - smile. "Yes".
"Use extira. Tough as nails, takes paint, half the price. That's what we build garage doors out of. Not structural - but you have the frame under it so it will work perfectly"

Greasy - no planer/no table saw/I have to buy material that basically just fits. Thinking to use tongue and groove composite panels from big box in 3/8 - bonded back to back to ea. other to give me 3/4 (perfect fit) and create stable panels. The T&G off the shelf is a little thinner than that. Also - the panels won't gap between the t&G. This stuff. https://www.lowes.com/pd/SmartSide-76-Series-Primed-Engineered-Panel-Siding-Common-0-437-in-x-48-in-x-96-in-Actual-0-438-in-x-48-688-in-x-95-875-in/3436526

I recently re-read a good chunk of that. It's amazingly solid, even today. What's really funny is that in my current job, as part of the process of approving new consultants to work solo with customers, they have to lead a meeting with one attendee playing the designated role of "hater." The hater's role is extremely similar to that description.

I don't do well with haters. I like to put haters on the spot, and ask "What do you think we should do? How would you solve the problem?" I've found a majority of the time I don't get a coherent response. If I'm going to be a hater I put my solution out with my criticism. If I don't have what I believe to be a viable solution, I put out my concerns for meeting minute reasons, to get people thinking and I shut up.

As a third party, there are a lot more limits to how directly I can call people out. I just acknowledge and defer all their objections for later follow-up, which may include a "let me make sure I understand the issue" as I'm logging it to let them sputter a little, but that also closes off the topic and prevents hijacking the conversation--and if they bring it up later, I can just do the "we already have that on the follow-up list" and keep on rolling.

There are days where I feel like half my job is basically being a preschool teacher to entitled man-babies.

Threaded Koso sensor at the top of the bowl on a BGM 177 -- maybe a handful of mm above the piston.

I don't really have anything to compare it to! Temperatures mentioned by others are under the plug. From known rides I'd found 50+ degrees.

Ran both sensors in parallel on that 100 mile ride. I couldn't get the two to make any relative sense -- sometimes +20, sometimes +80. Response time to changes all over the place. At a stop, the Koso would drop while the Runleader would climb.

Ray - i ran two in parallel as well.
Page Idonthaveaclue of this thread. I simply would unplug then replug the others sender when I came to a stop.
Yes - I figured about 50 degrees different - but it wasn't like I had a switch I was flipping to get instant reads from the two. I would go back and forth while pulled over. It was significant.

My piston looks great and my cyl walls also look nice. I've got a pretty decent sense of "optimal" tune - from the 1000 configs ive gone through here (990 of which weren't quite right)

I often refer to the absolute smoothness and sound I hear when it's there.
So my temps don't scare me.
I ran hard on that 100 miler.
Some looong stretches of hammered throttle in 4th lugging it along.
Prob hit my max temp in that ride at worst bit.
No where near there 95% of time.
Suppose I could throw a sender under the plug for fun and see what same stretch of road around here gives.

CHT on my smallframe WOT coast to coast would stay in the 350-450F range depending on conditions but that full range was safe to run continuously*.

*Conditional on the EGT also staying under 1250F.

Curious: Where did you take the CHT from and with what brand of sender?

stud, lower right (furthest from the airflow). Sender is Westach 8mm eyelet with shrink wrap insulating it from airflow.

Yeah, I don't have any reference of temps on Vespas either, but just knowing how aluminum behaves above 260f, I'd be surprised if it sustained temps around 400f is normal…

just appears to be on the high side, especially if the sensor is further from the plug

Following with interest on what other say.

I knew it! They're doing it on purpose. Thx Patrick.

And those are various sensor temperatures. The piston itself is considerably hotter.


Screenshot from one of Michael Forrest's videos.

Me too, though made much more difficult on that ride with the Lambretta cacophony.