Modern Vespa

This Allstate looks so awesome. I have no doubt you'll get the little gremlins worked out. Great work!!!

I always wish I was closer to all of y'all with electrical problems because I know I could sort them out in no time if I was there.

Thank you! One day I'll love it. Still mad at it right now. I know one day it'll be good to go and I'll forget all the troubles I had getting it going. I investigated today. I removed the SIP speedo and all its wires. Took out the Koso AC/DC converter as well. Figured I'd eliminate all the excess crap since it's just causing problems.
Replaced the tail light bulb and kicked her over. Tail and brake lights both work, head light still doesn't work. Horn is kosher too. Found maybe an issue but not sure. See the pic below. But also does the VAPE regulator need to be grounded? I mean the actual housing of the VAPE. I currently have it Velcro'd to the frame. Does it need to be screwed to the frame to ground it? Could that be the issue?

Yes it needs grounding. I've got mine bolted to the inside using a left cowl bolt. Using a BGM conversion harness let me bolt a ground wire there as well. That harness is nice with separate ground wires where you need them.

I drilled and soldered a wire to my vape regulator, then ran the wire to ground. That'll get your headlight to work. I'm betting anyway...

Makes sense. Thanks for the confirmation!
I'll ground that tomorrow.

Went to town on Bear today. Literally. Got the lights sorted. Still only work on the off position on the switch but I can live with that I suppose for now. Took her out to see how she felt. Pretty squirrely, came back home and added some torque to the front wheel hub. Was at 45ft lbs. bumped it up to 53. Little better.

Just out cruising for 13 miles and got home and took a look at the GPS speed….

what did you think about the gearing?

4th struggles a bit in the lower rpm's. I think your thought about having a lower gear for 4th is spot on.

short 4th or go down 1 on the clutch as you already know.

Took Bear out today on a trip to drop snacks off to my daughter at school. She goes to an outdoor school so I took advantage of the weather being absurd still (81° today) and rode the scoot.

Up to 1/4 throttle is still very choppy. I turned the mix screw in 1/4 turn and it was a little better so I did another 1/4 turn but that was too lean as the revs took a while to drop so tried going richer and that's even worse than going leaner.

Also when I shut off the engine with the kill switch during the drop off when I came back to leave it wouldn't kick over. Sat there for about 20mins and tried again and it struggled but I got it to run. That's more of a rich issue no?

And finally when I got home I noticed the lights were out again, no clue for how long. Glad I didn't get rear ended! Anywho I re did the vape hookup. Sanded a larger area to bare metal then put the wiring harness ground on top of the VAPE housing then tightened the screw that way to get a good ground. Worked great.
But still having issues after that. Hmmm why does the inside of the headset (no speedo so I got a good view) look like a thunderstorm? Turns out I found the actual number one issue with the electrics! The post on the light that holds the yellow wires was touching the arm of the headset clamp, causing a short. That explains the burnt looking post! So I took the headset top off and disassembled the clamp and ran two pieces of shrink tubing over the part that was fouling then put electrical tape over the post and reassembled. Good to go now.

So I think I can now get the SIP speedo to work properly so I'm going to give that thing one more try. Fingers crossed. I'll do that over the winter when I send my Allstate fork off to get the bracket welded on for the Vespa fork conversion.

What's the full engine spec? And entire carb set up? Time to get this going as good as it looks.

PX150E with a VMC177 Stelvio top end
Cases port matched and matched the carb opening too.
Pinasco 24.24er carb
Drilled filter
160/BE3/130
Idle is 55/160

Once I get past 1/4 throttle it's like a rocket ship. Just very choppy below 1/4.

Rotary inlet, stock inlet duration, stock 57mm crank?
Fast flow tap, 8mm fuel hose?
Which exhaust?

Is always the first 1/4 that's the issue. And usually when the first 1/4 splutters, the entire jetting needs redoing.
You have a good supply of jets and atomisers?

If you want to go baby steps:

Try a 128 mj and take it out to play with the mixture screw again.

what gearing is in there?

25/63 with the stock px150 gears

Rotary yes
I think mr Gick opened up the stock inlet
57 mm BGM touring crank
Sip fast flow 2.0
8mm hose
Polini box exhaust

I do have jets and atomizers, not a full set though.

Since winter has set in already the jetting stuff will wait till it's a little warmer out.

I've removed the fork so I can take care of swapping parts over to the Allstate fork and get the bracket welded on. Plan is currently to grind the bracket off the one fork and move it over since I can't find a bracket any where. We shall see. Still got till next week when I meet up with the welder.

Also have been trying to stick with the damn sip speedo, still not having any luck. Not sure if I maybe blew up the Koso converter? Is that even possible? How would I test that? I have lights, and horn. Just nothing happening at the speedo. The Koso housing isn't grounded, I have the black wire from the unit grounded to the frame but the unit itself is velcro'd to the frame. I figured that was fine since the part of it that would attach it to the frame is plastic so I assumed that wasn't grounding anything anyways. Was that a mistake?

Here's how those wires are hooked up:
Brown from Koso connected to Red from the speedo black box
Red from the Koso connected to a Blue wire from the Vape regulator
Black (1) from the Koso grounded to the frame
Black (2) from the Koso connected to Black from the speedo black box
Brown from the speedo connected to another one of the Blue wires from the regulator

I did have the Red Koso wire hooked up to the Blue regulator wire AND the Brown from the speedo black box. No power like that so I switched it to separate the Red and Brown to have their own Blue. No power still.

Also didn't have good ground the first time a blew lights left and right. Could that have damaged the KOSO?

I found the shock bracket. https://www.ebay.com/itm/334067281058

straight up MEAN LOOKIN

I just spotted this

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/1409247899600975/?hoisted=false&ref=search&referral_code=null&referral_story_type=post&tracking=browse_serp%3Aa0d6b0e4-ed19-4aeb-94c2-ba224217553d

go get it right meow

r_fostoria did me a solid and sent me the sellers number
Thanks sir!

On the speedo front I ordered a new Koso converter. I hope I fried that when I had it hooked up to the unregulated power. So I'll replace that and hope to all that is holy that that was the problem. Should be here Monday so I should know on Wednesday. Fingers crossed.

In my past experience, Koso products seem to be relatively susceptible to voltage spike damage, so it could very well be that.

The Koso converter I'm using on my Smallie now works, but seems to read about 1,000 RPM's low at speed. I need to try playing with the adjustment on it and see if that makes a difference, or if my cheap-o Amazon tach just isn't that accurate.

Think I found my mistake… I have the blacks from the Koso reversed. Got the wrong one on the frame. Fingers crossed that solves it! (Just had to read the instructions for the umpteenth time is all)

Nope.

Now I have no lights and no speedo. And no horn. Wtf.
Fuck this stupid ass speedometer.

Edit: minor user error. I have lights. Forgot to connect the Vape whoops! Still no speedo though.

If it's DC, use a 12V battery as your power source. You can check specific connections more easily and it's a lot quieter, which is good for thinking, in any case.

Update:

Went back and double checked everything. I have 2 speedo's due to thinking before that I had maybe fried the speedo somehow. So I swapped the black boxes and the speedometer itself. Both speedometers now flicker with one power box and neither does anything with the other. Double checked the connections and the guys up front at the speedo don't click together for some reason. I tried snugging them up with channel locks and could pull them right apart with out having to press in the release flap.

I don't have a second power cable (that one didn't survive the transfer to the new bike) so I'm going to order a new one or just that connector part maybe..

Better idea. Mad scientist style. Steal the connector off the dead power box then splice that one onto the end at the speedo!
Let's see if that does anything. Stay tuned.

It's an AC system. The Koso is supposed to take the ac and convert it to dc for the speedo. I thought anyways.

Oh what a sweet and sour meal this GD speedo has been…


The solution was in the instructions the whole time…. I had the brown speedo box wire on the wrong blue coming out of the Vape regulator. There's 3 branches:
Turn signals
Brake light
Horn

Instructions says to attach the brown to the lights circuit. I had tunnel vision apparently because I never put 2+2 together to see that only 1 of those blues has anything to do with the lights. And that's the horn circuit. Blue goes from regulator to the horn then up to the switch. Only blue that intersects the lights. Swapped over and SUCCESS!
Always read the fine print eh?

Hindsight being what it is and all, it's simple if you know how to read….

In the immortal words of my dad, "It's all easy if you know it."

Glad you finally figured it out!

Last week I got over to my welder and moved the damper bracket over to the Allstate fork.

Then I installed and buttoned the front end up.
All that's left is to hook up the front brake cable!


Hopefully once spring arrives I'll be able to enjoy it a little bit before I re replace my shoulder.

Nice work...

and that bike is bomber! Looks so good.

Thanks senor birbs!

I like it, need to get rid of blob above allstate badge.

I agree. One day I'll take care of that, at least the JB Weld is dark grey so it doesn't stick out too much like a sore thumb.

Sike on the speedo. Just went out to set it up properly and it just keeps turning on and off over and over again.

Going to order a new power box for it. I have a feeling I damaged it when it was hooked up wrong.
Also going to grab one of those center stand relocation brackets while I'm at it.

Stay tuned. This saga may never end!

Bummer man. I was hoping you got it, so then I can start thinking of getting one