Modern Vespa

The weapons of choice were the grinders. I "ringed" the lower fork and then ground in a V notch while i was at it. With two good whacks, the lug slipped out of the bottom of the fork (i did make a reference mark on both the fork and the lug before i separated the two).

Apparently i originally messed up and didn't get both the front and rear rims on the same plane (they were parallel though). So i bought out my nicest straightedge and put it to use. After clamping everything together and this time made 1000% sure that the front wheel matched the rear wheel for being plumb, i made an initial tack weld.

Knowing beforehand that if i cut and turned the fork, i would also have to make adjustments to the upper shock plate. The reason being is that if the shock plate isn't adjusted correctly with the shock, then the shock WILL bind at some point during its suspension travel. Binding is just plain bad news all around.

I had to remove my custom made stainless upper shock bracket for a stock PX bracket. Then do a small modification to that PX bracket to keep the shock stem from binding during its entire suspension travel. The only way to test that is to remove the coil from the shock, then cycle the shock stem up and down.

No pics from the longer test ride that i took today. But the scooter steers and rides MUCH better. I will say that the steering is now 100% sorted. I got in about 50 miles, half of it twisty backroads, so it was the perfect route to test out how the steering and suspension felt and reacted.

Oh man.
Looks like you have to re-break the patients leg - or at least bend it.
🙂.

I do have an idea for the seat.
I'll share when I get a moment.

Wow, just wow! That weld is AMAZING. Good catch on the steering column.

This thread is inspiring me to make some changes to my P200, and to get building on the Rataton I've got on the shelf.

Great job

Holy shit.

Me: This scoot kinda pulls to the right. Oh well.

You: This scoot kinda pulls to the right. Measure, measure … take apart … cut… measure … weld, weld, grind… put back together … There, fixed!

I wasn't looking forward whatsoever to sorting it out, but i knew exact what needed to be done so i just buckled down and made it happen. The most difficult part was that i did it out in front of my shop in the sun. It was about 87 degrees outside so it felt like i was melting inside my coveralls.

That is crazy !! And so well done, congrats

THIS IS THE WAY. Fantastic work, and I have alot of respect for you sharing the ups & the downs. Well sorted.

Stick around cause i got some more downs...

That same day i fixed the fork angle, i couldn't for the life of me get the air bleed from the front brake. I must have spent over an hour screwing around with it. I even have a mighty-vac brake bleeder, but to no avail it would get the air out. So around 11PM at night, i finally removed the SIP caliper and installed an old Grimeca caliper. 60 seconds later the lever was firm and the brake was bleed. Another Grade A SIP fail. My old Grimeca caliper is severely underpowered though. I forgot to measure it, but i think it's the old 28mm piston version?...which is probably why it's been sitting on my shelf. At some point soon i'll probably go after a newer Grimeca style caliper with 30mm pistons. I'd really like to have a SIP caliper that works through.

It came time to finally make a plan to securely mount and aim the heavy LED light into the headset. I did have it temporary positioned with 3 set screws in order to get the light aimed to where i wanted it. I came to the conclusion that i had only two realistic options to get the light aimed correctly. One was to cut down the polished round light bezel, and the other was to take a slice out of the headset. I didn't want to take a slice out of the headset, so i took a slice out of the headset anyhow. I'm more that satisfied with my decision.

I got an idea this morning on how i was going to securely mount the light. It was going great until it wasn't...

The way the light housing and round bezel is designed, it leaves a bit of the housing protruding from the back of the bezel, which means that there will be a small 1/8" gap between a mounting surface (such as my headset) and the backside of the polished bezel. So i did a bit of clearancing on the housing. All was was going absolutely perfect at that point!

I then refitted the LED back into the headset and *eyeballed two marks on the sides of the headset.

*i do a fair amount of finish carpentry, so i have a pretty good eye for plumb and level and for lining things up. Apparently too good...

With the light taped into place, i drilled through the side of the headset and LED housing at the same time. Something felt weird when drilling through. As if i had drilled all the way through the light housing. But i knew that was impossible...so i went and drill the other hole on the other side of the headset. The exact same weird thing happened again. And yes, turns out i drilled all the way through the housing! Arrrg!!!

I did figure out what happened though. I used the empty LED housings that Baja Designs shipped to me a month ago as my mock up housings for drilling the holes...well those housing have a different positioning for the mounting bracket holes. So instead of having 3/4" of aluminum that i was expecting to drill through, i ended up drilling smack dead center of the pre-existing threaded holes...which only left me with about 3/16" of a wall thickness that i drilled through!

My jaw kinda dropped. I figured i had two options, call up Baja Designs and plead stupidly and see if they would send me an empty housing, or option B was to come up with a fix on my own. Keep in might this is a $300 light we're talking about!

Sorry to leave y'all hanging, but i'm going to bed so i'll have to finish up with my fix tomorrow...

My guess - the caliper is fine - but it has a stubborn air bubble in it.
Those passage are so small!

Fire up a pic of both sides. Don't know them well - but suspect you will find there are some bolts that hold the two halves of the caliper together - and then the other smaller bolts are sealing off passages/alternate bleeder locations.

To get mine filled this last time - I used an extra bleeder off another caliper - and replaced one of those small auxiliary bolts with it.
(note: the auxiliary bolts may have a small ball bearing in the hole they are pressing on to seal off a channel).
Try pre-filling the caliper - from multiple points if you have to - flip it upside down and right side up - etc.
Or - use a second bleeder screw in another hole and let fluid pump out of it as well as the primary bleeder.

I had the same problem with my standard px caliper, solution was to jam the brake lever on over night,after the first night, acceptable brake, second night perfect.

I decided to completely disassemble the LED light and weld up the two accidents holes that i drilled. The whole process was fairly straightforward...luckily. Since the mounting holes from the factory are tapped to a 1/4", i decided to install M6 Timeserts in their place. All metric fasteners on a vehicle keeps things less complicated.

I countersunk two hole through the side of the headset for the M6 screws. Not ideal, but at least the LED light is now solidly in place. There was a very small gap (1/32") in some places between the headset and the backside of the bezel. I found a small O ring in the shop that i stretched to the *end of its life, and it fit rightly into that small gap, both creating a better seal for weather and for a bit of vibration.

* apparently i did stretch the O ring to the end of its life. I went over to the shop this morning and found that the O ring had snapped overnight. No big whoop, i'll order up some larger diameter O rings.

Halcyon Stadium legshield mirrors now installed. No doubt my favorite all time mirror!

There are no other ports that i can bleed from. I think i just need to rotate the caliper around when i'm bleeding it. I'm confident it's just trapped air, because there are zero leaks coming from the caliper seals or crush washers. I think i just need to spend the hour or so to properly bleed it.

That's also my go to trick for getting the last bit of air out of my KTM dirtbike's master cylinders. It didn't work with the SIP caliper.

After riding the scooter around for about 50 miles (with an additional cushion between my butt and the hard seat), i'm totally fine with the current legroom and seating arrangement. yes only slightly bit cramped, but i have no complaints. I'd probably be fine with that amount of legroom for 200 miles a day.

There was a rally two weeks ago in Portland (it was the annual Spring Scoot rally). I didn't plan on having the VB1 finished in time, so my plan was to simply ride a PX. Something everything fell into place and i realized that the scooter was good to ride! I had a blast riding it all weekend and there were no hiccups.

I've been so busy working on the scooter that i haven't made the time to stand back and really look at it. But once i got the the rally, i had a chance to stand back and just look at it. I did like what i saw...a lot. Apparently so did everyone else. The scooter was grabbing LOTS and LOTS and LOTS of attention! I was definitely not prepared for that. It turned out that i also won the "President's Choice" award trophy! I totally wasn't expecting that either.

Congratulations man! That's so awesome. I know a few guys from Eugene made it up for the rally.. I heard it was a nice one.

And I'm glad you got to take a minute and see the functioning work of art you created. Fantastic job! Flippin awesome!