Modern Vespa

All fine yesterday, although there was a feeling something was up. A couple of times there was a little hesitancy when opening the throttle.

Stopped for fuel and at first it wouldn't start as if the battery had died then it caught but would only run at max throttle. Kept stalling.

Realising that in heavy traffic I was not going to get home unscathed riding like this, I turned back to work to park it safely. Stalling many times on the way.

I had a quick look at the engine and the crankcase breather hose is badly split at the connection to the cylinder block and further along.

Could it be the culprit?

The bike is a 2008, I've had it since 2015, never any problems even when it was in the hands of a thief for a whole year, a few years ago.

Thanks for any help. ta.

Sorry you are having troubles. I can’t help with diagnosing your engine problem. But when you can, please tell us the story of loosing your Scoot for a year and then recovering it! That’s amazing!

I can’t say its the same for a Vespa, but a similar crankcase vent hose leak cause the same type of problems on a friend’s Nissan. Stumbling and stalling all over the place until we found the leak.

The crankcase fumes in some (likely most) vehicles are controlled by burning them off in the combustion chamber rather than venting them to the atmosphere like we used to do. In such a system any kind of crankcase ventilation system leak can then throw the mixture off causing all kinds of issues.

Replacing that hose would be the first step I would take towards curing the issue. Then I’d look at the other hoses to see which one is offering to split next.

I used to run a 53 flat head Triumph, an old army bike, that thing vented its crankcase straight to the atmosphere through a hole in the tappet cover which had a four inch hose on it. It was kind of amusing watching that thing gently puffing smoke out at idle.

Cheers folks.

As to the bike disappearing:

I was moving from the countryside back to the city and in the process left the Vespa chained and parked at the local station, under a CCTV camera, and drove my removal van to my new place up in London.

2 days later I caught the train back to the countryside to pick up my bike. Alas all that remained were some links of the massive chain that I had locked it up with. The CCTV was wiped every 24 hours so no idea who the culprits were.

9 months later I get a call from the police force based in near my old address telling me that my bike had been found in a very rough housing estate in Croydon, about half an hour's drive from my current London address.

I was told to go and collect it before it disappeared again. Very helpful!!

I drove straight there only to find it gone. I spoke to a woman who told it me that it had been driven off only 10 minutes before.

I went to the Croydon police to report it stolen...again.

The stupid thing was that my bike had been found in a garage with a collection of false plates and lots of stolen goods. The police had just moved my bike to the street and left it there??

Cut to 3 months later and another call from the police. They had stopped and arrested a guy riding my bike. They wanted to interview me as they really wanted to charge this guy as he had had previous and had been in jail for using scooters to rob people at gunpoint.

My bike had been impounded so it was safe but it took a lot of paperwork and two visits in order to get it back. It was in a sorry state and was a bit of a project to get it road worthy again. Cost me about £500.

It looks very bruised and battered but I prefer it to stay looking that way as I'm hoping it will put thieves off. Scooter and moped theft is crazy in London and almost impossible to get insurance.

I had to move further out in the end, plus get a garage.

As to the thief. He got 150 hours community service and was told to pay me £15

Funnily enough I never saw that money.

In the year it had been gone it had racked up over 3000 miles in the hands of various gang members.

Croyde,

Thanks for that amazing and sad story of your stolen (Twice!)Vespa.

Glad you have it back. Now to get it running well again!