Modern Vespa

Anyone have a kill switch for a 1980 era p series they can sell?

All the usual suspects are out of stock.
Thanks in advance!

Could of sworn I saw one on sip scooters when ordering parts today.

Scooter Center has a couple. One looks really poor quality.

This one looks ok.

What's wrong with it?

I replaced the wire in mine, and it was so strange. All the wires were fine, except the kill wire, which was completely crumbling and corroded, and the copper wire turned gray and brittle.

https://www.scooter-center.com/en/light-switch-vespa-px80-px125-px150-px200-1978-1983-9-wire-12v-models-with-indicators-without-battery-7676859?number=7676859

Close but looking for an OG or oem.
Some (most) of the aftermarket stuff available is pretty wonky.

I may have one. Can't guarantee viability. I'll take a look tonight.

You sir are a gentleman, a scholar, and a credit to the 50 yard dash!

Now I remember. It was involved in the "dreaded green wire" incident. Should work if you replace that rotted green monstrosity.

What happens to the green wire?

When I replaced mine, it looked like it had more current than it could handle going through it. I don't know what else would cause copper wire to corrode inside the insulation. And the insulation itself was all crumbly and disintegrating. But just that one wire.

It's weird, bc it's just a ground.

The dreaded "Rotten Green Wire" is a known issue with this era of Vespa. Just about every single early P-series will have this green kill wire corroded to some extent. All will need it replaced eventually. Every P I've owned, or worked on has this issue to some extent. If you're lucky, its intact enough to still function; but eventually the insulation will crumble away, and the wire will corrode to the point of breaking. I've heard different reasons for the cause of this: poor quality wire, etc. etc. etc....

If the wire itself is too far gone, a somewhat easy-ish fix is possible: run a new wire, outside of the harness; from CDI to Switch. Carefully drill out the old wire from the copper post on the switch, and solder in the new one. "Easy" is relative term, depending on your ability.

Good Luck!

I’ll take it! You rock!

Green wire cant be worse than wiring in the rocker button in a Lambretta right side switch.


DM me Price and and payment details and I will send the ducats.

Mucho appreciated man.

PM Sent. That'll be gratis. Just so long as you let me call you to discuss your automobile's extended warranty coverage.

LolZzzz!

Appreciate it Tom!!!

The Dreaded Green Wire on my 1980 P200, Spermy, held on for a surprising long time. The scooter had not run for about 15 years so the DGW seemed to deteriorate in sections which I wound up replacing one at a time as I got the scooter running. The final segment ran from the ignition switch to the kill switch and while I probably could have gotten another year or two out of it, I decided to replace it anyway.

Freaking green wire. Good call on rehabbing the old switch, though - I had a totally trash replacement and went back to do the same in the end

That's exactly what mine looked like!

The green wire becomes the brown wire. The copper wire turns this gray color and gets all brittle.

My assumption was that the kill puts some huge jolt of electricity through it. Like what goes through the spark plug. And it heats up a lot, but for a split second.

I guess 30-40 years is not a bad lifespan for it?

My green wire troubles became apparent after riding through a low water crossing during a rally. Bike sputtered randomly a couple of times along the ride. Only to come back to life again. It died completely at one point and I was able to pop the clutch at 2MPH and get running long enough to get back to camp. Once trucked home she ran fine for days. Baffled the heck out of me. Until that switch stopped working and I pulled it out to find the dreaded green rot. Pulled the whole loom and re-wired.

We all know early p’s have this issue but what year did they fix it by changing wire for the green?