Modern Vespa

Just to jump in with a status report....

The bike is on the road and humming along! It is a joy. There is just something about piston ported Vespas...

Mark who was over for other shenanigans insisted we dust off the SS180 and do the front end work. We needed to re-seat the lower steering bearing race. That race was such a mother f#$ker the first time around I had been dreading it. Mark, was like a Vespa pusher man... "come on, ya know ya want to! It'll only take 20 minutes." Lolz (For the record. It took about an hour. But it was sooo worth the sweat and cuss words.)

Anyway... way back in this thread I had inserted the race with a drift and some all-thread/washers. Apparently it was at a slight angle... no bueno. So, Saturday night we dropped the fork and then knocked out the misaligned race and then put a race back in to the column. The space on my SS for this race was sooo tight but we used a vespa factory tool this go round instead of the weaker all thread set up. It made a huge difference on the ease of installation. Big take away.... avoid knocking this race home with a drift or old race. Find the factory tool or some big all thread with some heavy ass weights and washers.

Sorry didn't take pics. But, happy to be out riding the VSC again.

For the record I still need to swap cases, but the kick start is hanging in there and I will ride on the OG cases until it gives up the ghost.

Hat tip to Mark for pushing us back to the garage after an already full day of 100 degree wrenching and riding. Worth it

108 degree heat index and it was a good day to get some wind-therapy.

Chariot of choice was the lady in red, but not after some minor, aherm*, adjustments. Factory tool FTW!

She finally got to stretch her legs after sitting for a bit. Boy, oh boy, she looks, runs and rides sooooo niiiicccceeeeee!

I posted a pic of the SS in the "Today" thread and will repost it here as kind of a period on this resto.

I suppose unless you get rid of a bike these threads become kind of organic and never ending. They grow evolve/devolve on their own as you stumble along. This resto is "complete" as of now even though I have small things to address like headlight, cable adjustments, etc.

Eventually I will have to address the kickstart lever again. Maybe tomorrow, maybe next year? (Hope/Pray/voodoo dance). Anyway, thanks all for the help along the way. Special mention to Greasy, Poi Dog for his assistance throughout, and of course Jess for passing this bike on to me.

I saw a comment Jess made when he first got this SS from Oscillator that sums up my feelings on this project: I think we got there with this SS.

Absolutely gorgeous. Just gorgeous.

Looks so good Birdsnest!

This is the model -- in that color -- that made me fall in love with Vespas. Were it not for the pictures of this model in Vespa Technica, Modern Vespa might never have come to exist.

You have made real the bike that I imagined all those years ago.

Well done, sir.

What a beauty

JOB WELL DONE SIR! The spirit of this SS is STRONG! Enjoy it as it was intended. Keep up the good work

Absolutely amazing.

I just gotta say Ka-SCHWINGGGGGGGGGG!!!!

Congrats BN. That bike has it all. What a hottie!

*rubbs hands together*

I eagerly await the next round of ham bets.

and also the opportunity of being a terrible influence, a voice of reason, a cheerleader, a sounding board, a shoulder to cry on, an enabler and a supplier of small bits and bobs along the way.

you did the heavy lifting, we were all just along for the ride. it turned out amazing and you should be damn proud of the work on that.