Modern Vespa

True Barn finds. Classic. the gift that keeps on giving

I found out a few weeks ago that one of the holes in the case where the stator plate screws thread in was stripped (this stock 200 engine I pulled out of my Allstate and is being installed into the VB1). Another hole was elongated a little bit and appeared to be ripe for stripping out as well. Since I was on a roll, I thought heck, I'll might as well do something about the 3rd hole as well. My M5x0.8 Time-Sert kit arrived in the mail today. After about 10 minutes of work all three holes are now rock solid. Dang, those Time-Sert kits are sure expensive!







Last edited by whodatschrome on Sat, 03 Dec 2022 14:59:05 +0000; edited 1 time

I'm trying to decide why there would be black paint on the orange tape - but it's a war - and sometimes you take a bullet...

They sure are expensive!
Crazy.
Good tho if you are in need of a must have solid repair.

It's actually orange tape that got a bit singed. It was in the low 40's this afternoon, and I wanted to get the case a little warmed up before I threaded in the loctite covered Time-Sert. A propane torch isn't what I would consider a surgical tool.

I am fairly well stocked up with just a few critical Time-Sert kits and a plethora of different lengths in...an M8, M6, M5, and an M12 (for my KTM's oil drain plug). It's soooo nice (critical almost?) to be able to have fix it stuff that is in my shop's inventory. I suppose I could still use a M7 kit?...but I'm going to wait on that. I haven't ever needed to fix a stripped M7 hole...yet.

Nice work done properly. its great seeing seeing repairs done right, doubtful those will ever strip again! I subscribe to the same policy of having repair parts, hardware, and extra spare parts on hand. Need 5 washwers - buy 50. Need a spark plug - get a 10 pack, Need an oil seal - buy 5. I hate having to wait... although it does happen.

you only think that you need a barn until you have a barn.

first come the pallet racks, and then it's all over from there...

Sounds like heaven to me

it's all fun and games and then you realize you're living in kajit's house of wares....

till you realize you have 12* bikes and only one runs because you're all: oh, what!? $400 for a most of a bike? shit, I have a motor... oh, hey, that fork is cheap! ooo looky here, one and a half motors? yeah, I'll get to that. I've got space...

*this number does not include frames, non running bikes that were given to you, salvage bikes, and wrecks to be broken down.

somewhere on the winding road betwixt "getting used to disappointment" and "like watching a car accident happen in slow motion" but before "full on train wreck" lies a little hamlet, an enclave if you will, known simply as kajit's house of wares. and buddy, if you have coin...

Oh I know this story all too well.... I'm up to 11, and only 1 currently runs.... I couldn't be happier, Unless I had even more. I have come to accept my addiction with an open heart.

$53 later and I got a nice surprise in the mail today. The next step is to take this new Vermont license plate and Vermont registration, VB1 frame, and my newly acquired 1958 Oregon license plate all down to the Oregon DMV. End goal is to have an Oregon title under my name and that 1958 Oregon plate registered to this VB1.





Last edited by whodatschrome on Sat, 29 Jan 2022 14:32:41 +0000; edited 1 time

Very Cool and good luck! I think you will have success. Please do report back, as I have (more than a few) vespas to register here in Oregon; all without paperwork

The Vermont registration paper finally showed up yesterday in the mail (it doesn't come at the same time as the plates) so I stopped by the local Oregon DMV office during lunch time. The line was fairly short. Thank goodness there was a security guard inside the DMV who's job was to not letting anyone eat or drink anything inside the building. I felt much safer knowing that everyone there was on an empty stomach....or perhaps the portly security guard just had a low blood sugar level? I bet if Scott was there with a large pan of apple crisp AND enough forks for everyone inside the building, Mr. rent-a-cop would have sang a different tune.

A total of $456 bucks to get an old Oregon license plate on my scooter. It kinda hurts when I only paid $200 for the scooter. And for the price breakdown...

$200 for the used Oregon plate.
$53 for the Vermont registration and plate.
$208 to the Oregon DMV for a new title and registration.
Having PERMANENT Oregon registration with no other fees to pay EVER...priceless.


The other bonus was that I saw the most Vato'd up vehicle that I've ever seen in downtown Hillsboro (and that's saying something)! Carlos' Chevy was parked right outside the DMV. I tried to count all the scorpions, but soon my eyes started to sting from sensory overload.

SCORE! I'm glad to hear you got it all set up and legal.

2024 mine can be declared an antique, or I can go the special interest vehicle route....

Congratulations. did the dmv give any hassle for having only registration, and not title from vermont?

I did the same a while back. I just mentioned that in Vermont anything under 250ccs only gets registered and not a title. They were cool with that answer.

Good to know. thanks

On the 62 Allstate the title had the engine number as the VIN.

Calling the Salem office, a person walked me through exactly what to relay to the clerk helping me, which turned out to be gold and made all the difference.

I'd definitely recommend calling the main number and asking the steps for whatever transaction you need to do, because the clerks may not know, cause I've experienced it. The first thing you're gonna hear is "we can't do that".

I had a very similar problem. My 1985 Vespa T5 (VNX5T vin prefix) was titled as a 1986 Piaggio with the IGM # as the vin! I brought no less than 6 different documentations and websites to prove my case that the DMV didn't stand a chance. I also had to take 3 different trips to the Oregon State Police to get a special VIN lookup inspection. OSP didn't stand a chance either. I was both nice and persistent to all the party's involved. At the end of the day, my 1986 Piaggio IGM was retitled as a 1985 VESPA (with a VNX5Txxxxx vin #).

The other difficult one was my Serveta. I bought it from a guy with just a bill of sale. The DMV made me go back to the previous 3 owners to get a notorized form and have the dead owner sign it. That was about an 18 month process to finally get a title for that one!

Clauss engine mounts showed up today! It took just a few minutes to install them. I'm still waiting to place a Scooter Center order, so I'm dead in the water on this project for a bit.

It's been a while since I've worked on the VB1. I kinda got stumped on how to fit the P200 engine into the VB1 frame when using the SIP conversion engine mount bracket (see page 2). The problem was that both the cylinder and cylinder head were making contact with the VB1 frame. From all the research that I have done, a 200 engine fits without cutting the floorboard area. Apparently I had to go a completely different route to get to the same destination.

I started off with making the decision to notch the floor a bit so that I could located the swingarm bolt further up. It wasn't a quick decision either. I was wrestling with ideas for the past few months.

I ended up locating the 200's engine swingarm bolt 3.5" back and 1/4" up from the original Wideframe swingarm bolt hole. I made a few marks and
make the plunge cuts with a grinder.

I sliced out 7/8" of the tunnel in order to bend the floor up...you guessed it, 7/8".

Welding rust is a bit tricky...

I'll still need to box in the floor with two triangle shaped pieces of sheet metal. The stainless SIP bracket offset the center of the wheel to the right of the frame by about 1/2". I'm toying with possibly using a SIP tubeless 2.5" or a 3" wide rim in order to get the wheel centered. The other option is to modify the SIP bracket (AGAIN) so that the wheel is centered. The problem with this is, that the cylinder and cylinder head will foul out against the VB1 frame. I'm confident I can notch the frame so that I can center everything, but I'd prefer not to notch. We shall see what I come up with.

Wow, amazing!

A couple more pics.

I don't know when I'll get around to working on this scooter again. It's that time of the year again (Spring time!), so that means dirtbike races are starting up again. I have a race this coming weekend (5.5 hours away) and another race at the end of the month (12 hours away), so that doesn't give me a whole lot of time to wrench on my other main passions.

Is the 12 hr away race in Cal City?

And the burning question on everyone's mind: do you take your pig-nosed dog with you?

I love the work that's being done here. the fact that you aren't just hacking out the frame is super cool.

also, I want more pig pics, pls and thanks.

Just go to tighten the bolts on the frame that hold the seat and gas tank in. Keep turning until it feels stripped and then back off half a turn (Greasy, 2022).

The first race is in Odessa, Washington (Desert 100). The second race is near Reno, Nevada (Virginia City Grand Prix). The claim to fame on the D100 race is that it's the largest mass start of any dirtbike race in the world. It's a Le Mans style start. A large cannon (that's located about a mile away) goes off, and that's when about 1000 racers run to their bikes to drag race a straight shot though the desert for about 1 mile to get the "holeshot". You just have to watch out for the huge rocks, whoops, ruts, and the occasional rusty barbed wire. It kinda sucks driving around an Econoline motovan with the current fuel cost, but you know this all to well Scott. I assume i get close to twice the mileage as your 460 powered RV!

Ahhh...the pink dog. Sad to say that Bentley passed away about two years ago (has it really been that long?). I was going to post this up when Greasy created the thread when his cat passed, but i wasn't ready to at the time. Bentley was surely my favorite critter i've ever had and he is sorely missed. A pot bellied pig's life span is about 12-18 years. He was about 12 when he went to the big bacon cloud in the sky. His last week of life didn't go so well. I though he was getting better a few day later, but something was a bit off. He woke up normally, but then he decided to walk to all four different corners of our pasture (about 3 acres). It's something that he's never, ever done before. He also stopped and visited the 2 alpacas for a bit. Then he went to visit the 2 horses after than. It was a very peculiar sight (what i realized the next day was, that he did his "walkabout" and said his goodbyes to the other farm animals and to his domain). That night his health went to crap. It was about 30 degrees out so i spent the night with him under a horse blanket in the pen at the barn. I froze my butt off. It sucked. About 6 am he was having difficulty breathing, and since it is a farm, well...it's farm life livin'. I went over to the house to grab a "farm tool". By the time i walked back to the barn he had passed. Thank God i didn't have to pull that trigger. I ended up just holding him him for the next half hour. Digging a deep enough hole for a 220lb "miniature" pot bellied pigs isn't easy. Hats off to cereal killers. I wouldn't want to dig holes in hard clay for a living. We had a full service for him. He was buried out in the family orchard, next to the Asian pear trees. He could always be found sunning himself there while waiting and listening for the overly rip fruit to fall off the trees and fall to the ground. I'll still tear up about him sometimes. I'm thinking about finding another pig this spring....heck, maybe even a pair O' pigs?

bro, my heart goes out to you and Bentley. Big sons is big sons man and you done saw that off proper. they know when it's time and they let you know it is too.

On the bounce back I grappled with the whole "is it time for another?" and that shit kinda got made up for me. so I wound up with two totally amazing land bats.

get you a pair to yell at, it'll be worth it.

and we want pics!

To Bentley
*raises cup*

And amazing work on that wide frame!!!
Can't wait for the next installment.

I'm so sorry brother. I'm glad Bentley got to say his goodbyes and it sounds like he had a great life. The two pictures I've seen of him really show how loved he was, and the fun environment he got to live in. Great job on that!

(Wiping my own eyes). So....a mass start race - sounds like mayhem and all kinds of fun! I'm gonna look it up! Are you riding the KTM with the 640 LC4?

Ummmm....about that. I randomly stumbled upon a Wideframe 200 build on the German scooter forum. I can't read a lick of German, the pics on the website shows me that there's absolutely no way to not hack the heck out of the frame. I tried searching for that particular thread again, but my google-fu is too weak to find it.

You can see in the pics where the uber tall T5 carb box cover fouls out against the frame. I sectioned out an overly large section of the frame. I might go back and patch back in some of that frame I cut out so that it looks more clean. I don't have a fuel tank yet, so I don't know if I'll also have to notch the tank for carb clearance either!











Last edited by whodatschrome on Thu, 31 Mar 2022 07:23:44 +0000; edited 1 time

The first pic shows the clearance with the shock completely extended. The second pic is with the rear shock completely compressed (I removed the rear spring from the shock body). I'll also need to remove some more of the frame near the airbox intake.

Thank you for your condolences Scott.

Yes, the mass start race is definitely crazy. It's even more insane to watch as a spectator though. A full one mile wide start line of bikes all lined up handlebar to handlebar. The trick for the start is to not get wadded up with rocks or other riders. Yes, there's a medical chopper on sight ready to take flight at a moment's notice. I'd prefer that no one has to be choppered out M•A•S•H style this year. And this year at the D100 I'll be racing on my KTM 990A (LC8). I have another race at the end of the month where I'll be racing my KTM 640A (LC4) on Saturday and my 990A on Sunday. I'm currently in excellent for both cardio and strength, so my hopes are pretty high for a good race season. I just need to remember to not turn it to 11. Seems like every time I do I come away with another separated riblet. I'm definitely not the best rider, but I do love to trail ride and race! Not everyone can win and I'm happy most of the time with just being able to finish strong with the bike still running.

The pics are of my KTM 990A at the 2021 Virginia City GP. The race starts on the super steep city street where you can catch some sweet Napoleon Dynamite air at the intersections (think of the car chase in the movie Bullitt). I had to go SUPER easy with the throttle. 100hp, brand new knobbies, and the first rainstorm of the season made it super slippery at the start. The bike has a "HOT" side and a "COLD" side. It's super fun to race with that livery since both racers and spectators think there's two different bikes out there.

In order to enter up the stock 2.10" rim, I need to move the engine to the left another 3/8". Which means I had to cut apart the Grade A "perfect fit" SIP Wideframe engine adapter... AGAIN. If I make time, I'm hoping to MiG weld the stainless adapter back together tomorrow morning.

Beautiful work!

Thank you for the compliment, but i wouldn't go as far as saying beautiful just yet. A more accurate description might just be "work!" for the time being. I think the project will get a little bit more ugly before it starts to get any better.