Modern Vespa

Complicated.

I have a Rally that was kind of a barn find. It belonged to someone who was in his 80s, and formerly a Vespa dealer. I bought in 2015, and it was incredibly complete and original, but also very weathered and rusty. The frame was really damaged by rust, but salvageable.

I never got around to the project and sold it.

I saw the person I sold it to list for sale, in pieces. He started to restore it.

So I bought it back. And ready to restore it (my goal is to finish by February).

This is what it looked like when I bought and sold the first time.


From a storage space in Santa Rosa.

When I brought it home. Serious patina.



After a bath

After cleaning it up, it looked pretty good.



This is what it looked like when I last saw it. Since then, it's been disassembled and painted. So it's a full restoration project.


Last edited by hjo on Sat, 19 Jun 2021 05:46:12 +0000; edited 2 times

First thing.

Can this be fixed?

I think the person abandoned the project because of this. It looks like he replaced the fly side bearing, and broke area where the seal goes. It's completely shattered there.

I bought another engine case advertised as a Rally, but turns out it's a P200 (The VSE threw me off, but the SN is from 1980.

I'd really want to salvage the Rally engine if I can.

The case halves are different. The Rally has a wider crank, and that's the one that used the Femsa, and flywheel with bolts. A Ducati flywheel would seem wrong.

Is it possible to have a machine shop weld new metal and mill it so the bearing and seal seats?

This may not be possible.

I could always build the P200 engine with the Rally parts, but this would kind of ruin how original the bike is.


The rally case half with shattered seal seat

The P200 case has a smaller crank opening.

Typical on these cases and the T5 ones. If you use a hammer to install the bearing and don't know where to stop, this happens. If you have the piece, a good welder can fix it or go with the Ducati ignition (late production Rallys came with the Ducati ignition here but maybe not there)...

After bringing it home a second time. Lots of parts. And lots of new parts, but the original ones all appear to be there.

Where to start.

Wow.
Good on ya.

Paint looks pretty well sorted now. I bet Jonathan Gick could mend that case... then... Engine rebuild and go for a ride!!!!

His work looks beautiful! I'll reach out!

Looking at the parts.

So many got broken in disassembly. This might be more if a project to get some kind of working bike, but might be too far gone to be a real restoration.

barrels and flywheels are replaceable.

the paint looks like maybe the prep job wasn't so hot by that photo. Painted over rubber bits, pitting not filled, etc. how does the rest look? will you have to redo?

it all kind of depends what your goals are, and the state of the bike. This looks like a resto-mod may be more appropriate than a concours restoration, but we'd need more photos to be sure. even so, looks like you have the makings of a decent runabout there, and I'd not lose hope. If you post up the current condition of all the important bits, and roughly what you think your budget is, we can probably steer you in the right direction.

Cool. Can't wait to see it come together.

Given the amount of damage to the motor, including things that are HARD to break, I'd be suspicious of the rest of it.

There ain't nothing wrong with a good restomod, either, IMO. Just keep it away from trees.

Also, I'm glad you...fixed...the title of this thread.

Holy smokes those floorboards! I've never seen a Texas spread of filler like that before! It would have been better if if that scooter had been sent to SEA for a "resto". Looks like you have LOTS of fixes to fix!

Yes. Things just got destroyed, which is sad. The engine hadn't run since the 1980s, but the interior of the engine is immaculate. It looks new.

I'll take it apart and check everything.

It's really sad about the flywheel side case. I talked to Jonathan Gick, and he said he could try to fix it, but wasn't sure if it's possible.

I'll send out and see. But if not, I'll have to find another Femsa Rally engine case, or make a hybrid with a p200 case I have. Might be easiest. But won't really be a Rally.

I know what's under that Bondo, too.

I had this bike sitting in my garage for years, because it had some major rust, and needs frame surgery. So it needs at least some replacement at the tunnel bridge, and probably a new floorboard.

But I guess I'll do it! I've studied quite a bit how to do this. So know exactly what it needs and how to do it.

I might try it myself.




Here, you can see that rust got between the sheets of metal, and expanded slightly.

The top sheet of metal was completely eaten away at the edge here.

The floorboards are ok, but there was rust along where the frame meets the floorboard, eating through in a couple of places.

Needs some of this metal.

And probably one of these.

I took a look at all the parts.


The engine case. If it can be saved. Those suspension bushings definitely need to be replaced.

The legshield is very straight.

It looks like there's some damage at the top brace of the legshield. Shouldn't this be flush?

Things to weld. A crack, and slightly damaged tail. Not too bad. Someone moved the taillight down for some reason.

Inside the frame doesn't look bad.

Two Femsa boxes! I might not be able to use.

The fork/link will get powder coated. Is it possible to reattach the dust plate? I've never seen one removed, but it's attached by being stamped in the aluminum part.

The ultra-rare Ulma 044 trim. It's very damaged, but I think probably salvageable. I'll have to find someone who restores stainless trim.

Someone long ago distorted the battery tray to fit a larger battery. This one needs some love.

Looks like a great project to me, a small piece of advice don't get things powder coated it's from the devil, wet paint is more than sufficient.

Good luck with rest of it, any spare femsatronic parts I'd be interested in if they are for sale?

Cgt75b.

If you've got the skills to fix the frame, then by all means go for it! I wish I did, I so solid documentation and photo's will be much appreciated

You can re-attach the dust cover to the fork. It shows as two parts in the parts manual; it's just peened rivets holding it together, at least on my GL & Sprint.

What's wrong with powder coating?

I powder coated this whole bike, except for the two plastic pieces. And was really happy with how it came out.

My concern with it was that you can't really repair it if it gets damaged, and it's not original.

I might not need the Femsa parts. I'll have to see. I'm sending the case out to be repaired, but if it can't be, I'll probably have to use a px crank and Ducati ignition.

I'll let you know.

oh good.

There are aluminum tabs that are peened, but wasn't sure if it could be redone.

It's not a great angle, but these are the rivets on my GL's dust cover. Easy to grind off and replace.

Or, you can do what I did and just paint the whole thing in place.

That's an OUTSTANDING looking P200, btw. I'd give powder coating a shot, but I don't have an oven and don't really have anywhere to build one, so I stick with my crappy paint skills

Parts book shows dust cover with holes for rivets, like GL.

I was happy with it! There's a place near SF that did the whole bike for around $800, which is much less expensive than body shops. They did a two stage with a clear coat.

It's not possible to use filler, though, so the body work needs to be metal work. I ended up buying new cowls/fender bc mine were dented up.

I want to try again and see if you can color sand and buff/polish. I guess that's possible!


The insides come out as perfect as the outside.

There's no way to use filler, so the inperfections show. Lots of rust pitting. But it's like healed scars.

I was really happy with the finish. It's very close to what the original one stage paint looked like

ah! That's more repairable.

The Rally has these areas where the aluminum is higher, and it's punched to peen over.

Allegedly, you can use Alvin Lab Metal as filler and it'll take powder coat according to a guy I know who likes to powder coat things. I used it to fill pits in my GL's floorboard and it was HARD once it dried/set. Like, hard to sand it was so hard.

I used it to build up meat on my new LML cases prior to porting and while it was easier to grind through than the aluminum, it was almost as hard. It's much easier to work with than JBWeld for that application.

I will now spend six months cleaning parts.

Thinks I'll probably keep them pretty original, just remove the rust and oxidation, and maybe zinc or nickel plat the ones prone to rust. Not overly polished, but perfectly working.

Experimenting with electrolysis to clean them.


One cleaned up

The castings are pretty rough.

Before

Before

electro bubbles

After

Still lots of pitting. But they look much nicer. This might be patina worth keeping.


Last edited by hjo on Sun, 20 Jun 2021 00:48:14 +0000; edited 1 time

Nice work there! Agree, that patina post electrolysis looks the dog's knockers.

Those look great!

I used it on my GL gas tank, and it cleaned it up wonderfully.

I did various rusty parts of the rebuilt LML that I put in my GL and it takes rust removal too three next level, for sure.

At this point, I just keep a bucket with Calcium Carbonate in it ready to roll with a 15A charger.

Old chromed parts beat the new stuff all day long

Sweet - that electrolysis looks like the way to go. The rough casting and pitting, IMO, is perfect for a nice vintage machine. When they are too perfect, it just doesn't feel right...

I agree! This was the way they were created. When they are super smooth and shiny, it's taking away the original-ness.

Run some crinkled aluminum foil (wet) over those pitted chrome parts and they will looks the bees knees.

I'll try that! I've never heard of that one!

It's fun to clean things that have been neglected and sitting in the elements since 1985.

The plastic chrome on these 1970s pieces was very high quality. It develops pitted areas, but the shine mostly comes back.

Love the patina when it's all cleaned up.


One halfway there.

Those turn signals look amazing. What'd you use on them?

Palmolive and plastic brush. Then some chrome polish and a really soft rag I got at O'Reilly's Auto Parts

I think mostly that the chrome, even on plastic, from that era was very high quality. It's almost 50 years old, and probably spent 40 of those years exposed to the elements, and cleans right up.

I'll have to give that a shot on my Sprint's turn signals as I gear up to refresh it. I'm afraid to do too much with them because mine seem pretty fragile.

The Sprint has gotten pretty grimy and needs more than just a good wash job at this point.
Looking at the schmutz that covers it, I wonder what my lungs must look like since I breathe that same air.

These ones are all cracked, and the chrome is separating in places.

It looks like the way the chrome was done was real chrome. So they're coated in some kind of metal (maybe brass?) then there are layers of other metal on top.

So the spots on them are some kind of rust. It's interesting.

Yeah, to plate plastic, first you have to lay down a conductive base coat, typically copper or some sort of copper alloy, followed by nickel, and finally by chrome. I started exploring that process when I was reproducing resin cast turn signals but quit before I ever actually succeeded in chroming anything.

I want to replate the hardware on this bike. Some can be replaced, but the quality of aftermarket specialized Vespa parts is so low now. I have a lot of the replacement hardware, but will try to use sparingly.

But electroplating is pretty toxic! It uses metal solutions and heavy acids.

So many colors.

I went searching for photos of all the Rally 200 colors. There are so many.

In the US, we only got a few; burgundy, orange, red, white, silver.

Leaning toward white, bc that's the original color, but like these ones.

Seeing the real Rally headset is making me consider getting one. The US bikes all got smallframe headsets, which looks kind of too small.


Canyon red is so perfectly 1970s. I've never seen it.

The silver was called Chiaro di Luna. It was a bit darker than this one, and didn't age well. But this bike is gorgeous.

Coral Red. I think this is the one the US models got. There's also a Corsa Red, which is just slightly darker

Karmandu Red. This is another strong contender. It's SO 1970s.

The white was almost identical to this VW white, which looks very nice when it's shiny. I would actually use this color code.

White. The original color. I like the gray stripes on white.

Sun Yellow

China Blue

Man... love the China blue with the rally stripes and bar ends. Scoot will be rad whatever you decide.

And totally agree the big euro headset is a great look. It almost makes it look like the handle bars had a slight drop. Hella cool. (Almost looks like there are actual drops on that coral red one.)