Modern Vespa

That looks SO much better!

To celebrate my hammer and dolly prowess, I decided to hit the road a little. Which led, of course, to more things I needed to re-do.

I got just over the crest of the hill my house is on when the exhaust decided to pop off. The PM Tuning pipe doesn't have a spring to keep it snug to the cylinder, just a U-clamp. Bad design on an otherwise good pipe.

I would have just annoyed the neighbors and ridden it home, but it also chose that moment to decide it didn't want to start.

So I pushed it back over the crest of the hill, then coasted home and discovered that the CDI had vibrated loose. Not sure how I messed that up, but I did.

So I reattached the CDI, cut a strap to attach a spring to the exhaust, and THEN I got out and rode a little.

Holy Hell is this this fun to ride. Tons of power and temps settled in right at 305f on a multi-mile run doing 55 into a headwind. I'm going to up the main and idle jets a notch, I think, and maybe the needle taper, too, but this thing is a blast.

I love it when a project finally comes together.

Weld? That looks like a perfectly good BODGE to me.

That's a top quality bodge, I'll have you know!

Besides, is it really a bodge if the exhaust didn't fall off for a change?

I've gotten out and ridden a few times, now working on dialing in the carb (PWK 34).

Current jetting is 52 idle, 155 main, JJG on 2nd clip.

Idle is close, but still a tiny bit lean. May be able to nail it down with the mixture screw.

Mid-range is doing well. I had it out on the highway today and it settled in at 325-328f, which is at the top end of acceptable, but it was stable, including uphill into a headwind at 55-60. EGT was under a thousand, so lots of room there.

The main needs to go up at least two or three sizes, though. When I opened it up and transitioned onto the main, temps spiked up to 375 almost immediately. EGT bumped from just under to just over a thousand.

And I need to balance my wheels for highway speeds. They were getting a little wibby-wobbly as I got up to 70. It's always something.

I also am almost finished refinishing the original fork spring. The new one I had, which was originally ordered for my Sprint but never used, is really too short, so I dug out the old one, wire brushed, electrolysized, wire brushed some more, ospho'ed, washed, and have now primed it. It'll get top coat this afternoon to go on the bike tomorrow.

I'm contemplating if I want to just drop the fork out to do it, or if it's a reasonable task with the fork in place.

Thoughts from the crowd on that?

So the bummer was that the 155 main was the biggest one I had, so more jets are on their way from jets r us.

In the meantime, my GPS speedo arrived, so that plus replacing the front buffer spring will keep me out of trouble today.

I also need to figure out a permanent location for the EGT, but I'll get there. Right now, it's just mounted to the inside of the legshield with the wire running up the floorboard. A little bit janky, but it's getting the job done.

I sort've the new speedo today. It was hard to read installed flat into a blanking plate, so I tweaked things so it faces more directly at me. It doesn't look "right," but it's functional and gives me Nice Things like turn signal indicators, hi beam and neutral lights, and of course, accurate speed.

The stator struggles a little to drive it at idle, so I'll add either a battery or capacitor, I think.

I didn't get to the damper spring, but I did admire it a little. Blacked out front fork will be sharp.

I didn't get to the spring today, but I did get the front turn signals installed. Turned out to be a bit more of a PITA than expected. There's a LOT of wiring inside that headset now.

Blinky Blinky
In less fun news, I went to the DMV today to deal with my daughter's license plates and when I came out, the clutch wouldn't engage. Naturally, the first time I leave home without a bunch of tools on board, something like this happens. Luckily, two different people each gave me a pair of pliers, which ultimately allowed me to get the fine adjuster on the clutch down enough that I could start it and get home.

Deciding I wanted to replace the clutch inner, since it looked like it had a broken strand or two, when I tried to pull it out to replace it, it jammed up in the outer so bad I had to replace the entire cable. Once replaced the cable, it took me about two minutes to get the clutch set up.

And I also thought to take a couple pictures of the GPS speedo. It looks pretty bad right now to get it at a good, readable angle. I'll come up with a better housing to use until SIP get their act together and get the SIP speedo back in stock, but it works great, just looks a little funny right now.

Okay why both a CHT and an EGT? Offhand seems like overkill. What am I missing?

pulling a long hill under load at lower RPM the EGT can be fine and CHT well over the top. drop to a lower gear and the EGT goes high and the CHT drops. Only having both will give you the full picture.

those turn signals are awesome! Mind sharing the source?

Love how low-key the turn signals are!

Sure. I thought I'd posted a link back earlier in the thread, but they're Slim Line LED Turn Signals made by a company called Eagle Lights. It says they're for a Harley, but they mounted to the mirror brackets perfectly.

I don't want to talk about how many hours I think I spent looking for those lights. The other ones I considered were the Kuryakyn micro bullets, the ones I bought are exactly what I was looking for.

The one problem I now have is that I'm definitely going to have to install a battery. The load at idle is more than that stator can handle, but since I pulled the oil tank out of the glovebox yesterday, that's not a big deal. I'll just have to get one and get it installed.

And who knows. Maybe today I'll finally get that damper spring installed.

Damper spring is installed. It was actually easier than I was expecting.

I disconnected the shock from the arm, mounted both the upper bracket, then screwed the spring into both of them. Getting the shock back on the arm was its usual PITA self, but that was expected, so almost doesn't count in the Difficulty Factor.

And I had the pleasure of hosting CM2 and his son, CM2.1, at Casa Chandlerman last night. They were road tripping through on their way to Atlanta, so we got some dinner and hung out in the workshop for a while.

Amazingly, Mike, he didn't try to fabricate a better speedo mount for me on the spot or anything. He must have been exhausted from a day of driving.

Ha give him time, give him time ...

The front end looks better with the new spring. Angle of swing arm is much improved.



Old spring (note offending tree in background)

did this guage holder for a VNA

https://www.shapeways.com/product/XE8PHS7KB/gauge-adaptor-for-vna?optionId=3586298&li=shops

Not to kick a man so recently down, but did that offending tree possibly knock your horn clockwise somehow? But shock and new spring do look great, MUCH better now. You might wanna shorten your front brake cable outer so more gentle curve to the hub and easier brake action.

The horn, much like its owner, has been off kilter its entire existence.

What's funny is that I didn't notice the brake cable until I lookd at the picture, but then it jumped out at me as something I need to fix.

And main jets arrived in the mail today, so I should be able to dial in the carb, too.

Everything is looking great Chandlerman! New all black front end is slick and clean. Legshield and all that looks 1000 times better. Something like the Ooopsclunkthud VNA gauge pod would be super rad for your speedo situation. I like the slightly raised look.

Thanks, GL!

Now that the wiring is all complete, I can figure out how to fit it all in there. I didn't mean for it to be so raised up, that just sort've happened. I had it flush mounted initially and it was too hard to read. All I really want is enough of a tilt to it that I can see it while riding in sunlight.

I'll continue to work on it, and ultimately expect to fabricate a steel or aluminum blanking plate with a sloped bezel. Yet another task for the, "I really need to learn to weld" list.

After hjo's Rally Color post, I went looking to see if I could find a good picture of a Sun Yellow VBB.

While I didn't find that, I found a video of a guy doing final body prep & paint of a smallie, which was somewhat interesting, but what I really liked was the painting frame he had for doing the body.

It wouldn't be hard to make, and would be a game changer for painting a Vespa frame, so I'm throwing it in here.

A few screen caps for those who don't want to watch the entire video. The screen caps came from about 4:20-maybe 6:00.

I don't know what that flange on the front of the crossbar in the lower picture is for, but maybe a stopper when the frame is hanging vertically.

He has a wire hanging from the ceiling and hooking to the horncast, it looks like, to support the frame when it's horizontal.

And, yeah...I'm thinking about doing a full teardown with paint on my VBB...I'll probably wind up naming it "Orange Roll."

Quick carb tuning update...bumping the idle to a 55 and the main to a 160 may be the winning combination. I had it out on the highway this morning for a donut run and the temps seemed to be leveling off at about 310 holding 65 mph which is about 3/4 throttle. That was where I was spiking up previously, so five points of jetting (on a PWK, remember) dropped the temps by 60f degrees.

That paint looks so perfect when it's finished!

Took a little ride to the Parthenon this afternoon.

That repair to the legshield is impressive!

Especially when you consider that I don't really know what I'm doing with a hammer and dolly.

Also, first GSF Dyno on the rebuilt motor.

I blipped off the throttle for a second at 7,000 RPM's because a guy was inching forward like he was about to pull out in front of me. Looks like the timing could advance a degree if I wanted to since I was guessing peak power would come in more like 7,500 than 6,500.

Not a bad build, though. And first kick start pretty much every time thus far.

The front brake cable no longer catches my eye, I had to remember to look.


Wait, is this the same bike that supposedly ran off all by itself and got wrecked?

Might have to change Sweet Roll's name to "The Comeback Kid"

Daniel Laruso. Gets a black eye and gets back up.

It seems wrong to rename it, but this project has been counted out more than once along the way (anyone remember the floorboards?) and just kept coming back.

It does seem to have been quite the adventure you've gone on with this scoot!

Sweet Roll is rolling deep. She looks amazing, and your work is top notch. You should be proud. Awesome pics too.

What engine is this now? BGM177? Whats the full spec? Port timing? Carb jetting?

Like the colour of this one. I'm going to copy it at some time in the future.

A couple of hours with an expert panel beater, new trim and that legsheild will be as good as new.

Yes, it's the BGM 177. Current jetting is 55 idle, JJG on 2nd clip and a 160 main. The P200 is in my Sprint with a saddle and a milk crate to serve as my grocery getter.

Port timings are 126/176/25 TR/EX/BD, squish is 0.8mm.

With that jetting, it settles in at about 315f on the highway once it's up on the main jet (60 MPH+) and about 325-330f while it's on the needle. EGT stayed down in the 900-1000 range in both cases.

It settled in so nicely at about 65mph in 4th gear that I thought I might only be in 3rd gear until I checked the speedo.

I feel like it comes onto the pipe a little later than I remember, but that's probably just bad memory on my part.

I'm already at the point that I don't notice the remaining dents on the legshield, so it'll probably get to run as-is for the forseeable future. I may still take it to a body shop and see what they think, though. There's a place not too far from me that does a lot of paintless dent repair work on customs, limo's, etc., so I may let them have a go at it, then put new trim on and declare victory.

The picture in front of the Parthenon kinda reminds me of the Rocky scene on the stairs. Triumphant! Nice job on the bodywork!

"Your nose is broken. How does it look? Ah, it's an improvement."

55 seems quite big for the pilot... with and pwk 35 you're looking at around a 45 pilot...

The air screw should be around 2.5 turns out apparently... was asking folks in Germany who are using the pwks a lot in their builds

My camera only had time delay options of three seconds or ten seconds, so I was still getting in position, I guess, but that was the best option I managed for both the scooter and myself.

This was a better picture of me with the sun went behind the clouds so I wasn't all squinty, but it didn't show off the scooter, and we know what's really important in these pictures.

Richer taper (K?) and slightly bigger main jet (165). Agree, 55 pilot is very big for a PWK.

The only K tapered needle I could find was a KLK, so I put that in along with a 165 main and dropping the idle back to 52.

So it's now 52/KLK-3rd clip/165. That cleaned up the 1/4 throttle so it gets on the pipe a little earlier but is still going to stay cool, I think. I took it out on the highway briefly and temps were still climbing slowly past 305f, but were definitely not going to go anywhere near 350, I don't think, at that's in 95 degree weather.

I got some gas while I was out, too. 24 MPG.