Modern Vespa

All my scooter projects are currently on hold as of yesterday evening. I'm going in for a foot surgery tomorrow, so i spent today cleaning up the shop and consolidating bits and pieces. All the scooter are under covers until i can be mobile again. I have no idea if that will be two weeks or two months. My scooter (VB1, Allstate, and PK) goals were to hit them hard and fast and knock out as much as i could in a minimal amount of time. Mission accomplished there.

The surgery is remove plates and screws from my foot. They've been in there for the past 8.5 months and i'm still limping, standing, laying, and sitting around in pain all of the time. All is good though. It could always be worse. If life wasn't easy, everyone would be doing it.


I'm hoping to keep the hardware. Maybe i can incorporate some of it in my build? Surely i could at least fix a cracked legshield with a small plate and a few loose screws?

Ok - seriously - WTF?
This is what happens when you make med school all about the medicine.
You know what Im saying?
🙂

I mean - for the love of god - did they run out of shorter screws?
I mean - if I worked like that on the inside of my motor - the bearing seat would have just cracked in half, and the clutch would be fowling on the tips of the screws poking out.

No wonder it hurts like hell to walk - half the damn screws are poking out the bottom of the bone.
Tell that guy a grinding wheel for f*cks sake.

Kidding aside - it has always been my contention that there should be two tracks in med school - and they should let the nerds diagnose and direct the medication - but allow a dexterity test rather than the high MCAT score to determine who gets to perform the actual operation. Never made any sense to me.

It's almost as if some of the interns were sent over to the sheetrock aisle at the Home Depo so that they could sweep up the random lengths of drywall screws that were on the floor. Heck, while they were there, they might have also made a dash down the plumbing aisle to pick up a roll of galvanized metal strapping plate as well.

You should see my hips… looks like they used 4" screws and a bunch of them! I think I have more screws inside my body than my Allstate does. Between my collarbone, both hips and both shoulders I'm over 30 and I have a few more coming too. I'm worth more melted down, don't tell my wife or kids that though!


Just toss some lag screws in there, no one will notice!


Last edited by FridayMatinee on Fri, 16 Dec 2022 00:54:12 +0000; edited 1 time

Jebus, that looks scary. good luck on the surgery and recovery.

i just got unscrewed about 2 hours ago. I have no idea which bone in my foot is 1.5" long though.

All that hardware normally comes in a kit that includes anything that could possibly be needed, and then the unused portion is returned to be re-steralized, re-kitted, and packaged up for the next time. Doubt the doctor gets a lot of time to consider the perfect screw length.

Those plates would make really nice rings! Trying to think of what you could use the screws for.

Ok.
Again - I have to weigh in.
Those screws are crazy long.
And at what point did the guy make the engineering decision that the next size up in gauge was required for two of them? Like the narrower ones were going to snap?

You know when your putting up dry wall or doing a little framing and the gun just starts getting good to you and you fire in a couple extra. Ka-pa, ka-pa, ka-pa ka-pa!! It must happen in the operating room!


Ok. Based on what u guys have posted - If I ever get something fixed, I am going to pre negotiate what size screws and how f&cking many of them the doc wants to use!

This thread just keeps giving.
🙂

Heal well and quickly my brother!

Orthopedy is basically carpentry of surgeries. Not such finicky flavor of medical care when compared to other fields of expertise like cardiology or neurosurgery.

Chisels, saws, mallets, drills. Don't need dictionary to know what they are using in the OR parse your frame back together together

I work mainly on the imaging devices and those GE's OEC C-arm xray devices really are the workhorses in there.

Cheers from a biomed and quick recovery!

I'm a remodel carpenter by trade. I do a fair amount of finish work (because i enjoy it the most). But the screws in my foot look more like rough framing, not finish work. If i used screws like that on any of my jobs, i would fire myself! Don't get me wrong, i'm not complaining about what screws were installed in my foot. The best part about the random screw lengths and diameters is that it makes for some fantastic WTF conversations! We also have it pretty darn easy living in a 1st world country. This type of conversation wouldn't even be a conversation in a 2nd or 3rd world nation.


And on a side note, one of my friends sent my a care package in the mail. Thankfully i have a good story to go with the patch![url][/url]


Look online for the patch.
brokenbonepatch.com

I think I may have one of these patches if you want it. My foot got better over the last 15 years, so don't need it any more.

Mia culpa: I was having some fun with the whole Home Depot shtick - except the part about med schools using skilled dexterity as a means of choosing surgeons… that part I meant.
🙂

Whodat - find a place to use at least one of those plates or screws on your scoot! Killer cable tie or what not.

While i was laying in bed wide awake at 1:30am this morning, i remember that right after my first surgery, my surgeon DID bring up the fact that he used a bunch of different length screws because that's all they had in stock. I could tell he was quite frustrated with what the hospital provided him with...or allowed him to use (so this thread won't need to be moved to the bodgespotting thread). The surgeon is a cool guy. He's a very active physically and i could tell that he works out to keep in shape. So during his and my first pre-op discussion, i made it VERY clear of what results i expected when everything was all said and done with. I told him i wanted to be able to do the "asian squat" again, and to try to knock out a sub 5 minute mile.

It was kind of comical a couple hours after i got home from the hospital yesterday evening. One of our dogs got their coat (and themselves) caught up in the barbwire fence. It was about 35 degrees out, my right foot was bandaged up, i was wearing one crock on my left foot, going commando in basketball shorts, while wearing just a track jacket with no shirt underneath, so i was dang cold. I had to ride down the gravel driveway for about a 1/4" mile so i hopped on my little Coleman mini-bike...while still doped up from surgery 2 hours prior and the oxy that i had just taken...while our second dog was chasing me, while he weaving back and forth in front of my tire! I think he was purposely trying to crash me out! Long story short, it took me a few minutes to untangle the dog (she was 100% unscathed) and i didn't break my leg! Good times that i don't care to repeat, but make great memories!

My pain management is about 20x easier for this second surgery. In fact, it's only been 24 hours and i'm starting to get smidge bit stir crazy already. I had a difficult enough time during the first surgery that i lost 18lbs (i dropped down to a very unhealthy 4.5% body fat, 142lbs, @ 6' tall). It's taken me months and months of going to the gym 9~12 hours a week to get those numbers back up to 8.5% body fat and 158lbs. I know that's totally a first world problem, but the reason i posted up those numbers is because it's pretty amazing how different each person it put together and how each person's body reacts to differently to pain, stress, inactivity, or exercise. The pituitary gland doesn't seem to play favorites.

I get the stitches removed in two weeks (dec 30th), and if i continue to feel as well as i do now, i might be over in the shop working on the VB1 a bit more. I do have an idea of how to strengthen up the frame, but in order to get any measurements to see if my idea will even work, i need to pull the fork and engine so that i can flip the frame upside down on the sawhorses.

I'm currently taking one oxy every 3 hours, so i don't know just how well my typing is tonight...so bare with any confusion.

That patch is rad Patrick! Thank you for the offer! I am going to have to think about it. Since i broke it while riding a dirty bike, it just doesn't seem right...but at the same time, when i was in my air cast last summer i was commuting all around on my PX200 (yes it has the amazing E start) since it was less painful than driving a car. I did get more than a few comments from random people asking me about riding around on my scooter with a leg cast!

Fingers crossed for a quick recovery!

It looks like NSM doubles as a sub-forum for medical maladies. Yeeesh.

Charlieman - we will be sending your future orthopedic surgeons instructions that clearly state all major repairs must have some jbweld and/or Honda-bound and a primary component.

Fascinating thread and incredible fab + design work. Your photo documentation of the whole thing has been spot on too. Hats off on the progress so far. This scuttle bucket rocket project will undoubtedly inspire some others to put our own rusty spares to similar good use.

I can only imagine how many 60 year old Vespas were not babied and instead were "rode hard and put away wet," consigning them to decades of slow disintegration.

I'm glad to hear the recovery (and pain management) is going well so far too.

Heal up brother, the ride ain't over yet. That and I'm enjoy your thread too much.

Thank you for your support everyone, i do appreciate it very much! Yeah, no doubt there's a fair amount of pain, it isn't anything like the first go around, so it's literally a cake walk for me this time...without any of the walk though. The pain is sharp, but so is my mind this time, so while i'm laid up right now all i'm thinking about is how to design and build some sort of structure to support the rusty frame. And i'm thinking some sort of an inner tube frame that gets recessed up into the floorboard tunnel and gets bolted to the frame. If i did that, i'd like to try fab it out of stainless steel. But gosh darn it, that alloy is just a pain to work with. It's difficult to drill, cut, and weld...ok, maybe i set a challenge up for myself? The only thing about making a subframe is that my rear brake pedal linkage might currently be in the way. I'd prefer not to have to redo that portion of the project. I guess option 2 is a floorboard reinforcement plate a al VooDoo. The only thing i don't like about that is that i will get a LOT of standing water (the scooter lives in the rainy side of Oregon) between the frame's current swiss cheese floor and whatever plating (probably an aluminum) that is under it.

oh - you can imagine how much my dr's like our convos. #Ihavealotofquestions.
At 16 getting scheduling my molars to be removed - I asked the surgeon: what time is your first operation? He said 8:00. I think I caught him off guard with my response: great, I'd like to do 10:00. he looked at me quizickly - and I said - I want you to be warmed up and on best form. He snorted when he laughed.

Whodat: my floor board is, well - a bit Swiss cheesy.
Actually - that is a slight on Swiss cheese.
See image below.

Ive cut out the center - see pic 2

I found this other thread - where the guy built a subframe.
It makes a bunch of sense to me - and for mine - cause its such a wreck - it will make sense.

You might find something of value in here.
ACMA. From vietnamese home made to russian custom)
3rd image below is from the thread.
Some crazy customization went on.
The sub frame is the bit that I kinda liked
(there is a pretty spectacular gas tank too...)
Check it out for a bit of inspiration perhaps.
It's on my radar for subframe solutions to my rust bucket.


lil bit rusty

little clean up exposes the center tunnel where the subframe will reside - and allows me to sleep better at night

Bottom right corner shows subframe. not sure it has to be stainless...

Wonder if the doc's going to bondo all those holes in your foot where the screws were?

You having the intellectual wherewithal at 16 to question a doc...that's some good stuff there! Everyone else at that age simply just swallows the pill when the Dr says "open wide".

It's about time you leaked some pics of your own rusty Vespa project! I think my scooter might just be a few curds short of your swiss cheesed frame. Yours does looks a bit worse than mine...but not by much.

That's an amazing build thread you found. Thank you for posting it up. It definitely does give me some ideas. We'll see just how much i glean from it and incorporate into my built. The only reason why i was thinking stainless was because i don't want to do any additional exterior painting on the frame. I would like to get the tunnel portion media blasted (then primered), but leave the rest of the visible portions of frame as is.

My foot pain management is going WAY too easy right now, so i'm getting stir crazy in less than 24 hours after my surgery. I'm jonesing to get back over to the shop and start wrenching on scooters!

Don't tell Gick, but i overheard JB Weld while i was in the recovery room.

Maybe your surgeon was like the previous owner of my house, back in the days when they fixed everything with a rusty coffee can full of reused nuts, bolts and screws. Those old slotted wood screws are a bitch.

I happened to find a couple threads on the German Scooter Forum on building a subframe inside the frame's tunnel. The more i look at it, the more i'm not really interested in going that deep. I'm not intimidated do the work whatsoever, i just don't want to have to dissect portion of the legshield (that's located directly behind the mudguard) in order to install the tubing for a subframe. No doubt it would be fun to fabricate a removable stainless subframe, but i just don't want to go that route. I think my plan is to just use a sheet of aluminum to cover the bottom of the frame tunnel (à la Voodoo). If i notice any frame flex, i can always go back and fab up a subframe at a later point.

https://www.germanscooterforum.de/topic/79780-rahmen-verst%C3%A4rken/

https://www.germanscooterforum.de/topic/448154-rahmenverst%C3%A4rkung-px-stra%C3%9Fenversion/

NOTE: if you have an "ad blocker" on your phone or computer, you have to disable it in order to go on the GSF website.

Good finds - and interesting - but gracious that's more complicated then I was planning for mine.

I like your P style tube for upper portion.
Agreed - worst part will be tying that into subframe at section behind mudguard.

One advantage to modifying the behind the mudguard area that does come to mind tho: it would allow u to indent the legsheild a bit.
Looked to me like that was the exact area of interference that was causing u to have to have the gap from mudguard to horn cast. I was thinking maybe u could gain some advantage with the legsheild bumped in right there?

Thanks for digging up/ posting the links!

During my build i did contemplate about making an indentation in the legshield in order to gain clearance for the P2 fork's upper shock bracket. But after weighing my options for a while, i didn't want to go that route. It looked like i would have had to section out quite a bit of legshield material in order to be the fork to fit. No test rides yet, but i really feel as though the route i took (lowering the fork) was by far the best option in this build.

Sooner than later i'm going to have to sort out my hydraulic brake lines. My plan is to use simple hydraulic pressure switches. But my question is, do i need to use a "shutter" or an "opener" style switch? I always get confused on which is which, but the pressure switch's (that i plan to use) contacts are open until the brake pressure competes the circuit. I haven't bought a wire harness or any switches yet for this scooter, but does anyone know if the brake pressure switches will work with an 12VAC ignition? I will be using the stock stator and CDI.


the type of brake pressure switch that i'd like to use.

Shutter for 12V AC, so the pressure switch will work. Just make sure it's the correct thread pitch since Piaggio used a "fine" pitch (M10x1mm if I recall??)…

Thank you SaFiS. I always get confused between the shutter and opener, and which to use with AC and DC ignitions.

And yes, M10x1 tap...at least that's what i'm going to use. I bought a handful of aluminum tube spacers and i had my buddy use his lathe to hold the aluminum and the tap completely straight (I needed two, so i had him make four for me). He then squared up the ends of the aluminum. My plan is to search around my shop and see if i can find a couple spare KTM brake pressure switches...which also happen to be a M10x1 thread size. I'm wanting to conceal the pressure switch wires inside the frame, so my plan is to mimic how Casa Performance plumbs their pressure switch in their disc brake kits.


It's difficult to tell, but the 4 tube spacers have been tapped to a M10x1. I'll plumb in my pressure switches just like the one in the pic.


Last edited by whodatschrome on Sun, 01 Jan 2023 07:34:16 +0000; edited 1 time

I worked on the floorboard today. I decided to section out some more rusty spots. I'll section some metal back into place when i get around to it. I used a spot weld cutter to separate the panel.






I cut back the reinforcement struts a smidge. I had to use the spot weld cutter there as well.

With the spot welds sanded down.

I had a large sheet of 3/16" 6061 aluminum that i decided to use for the panel. I contemplated about plating the whole dang floor with the plate, but i didn't want water to get trapped between a plate and the floorboard. A smaller plate will be plenty strong for what i'm doing and still allow water to pass through the existing rust holes in the floorboard.

Bending 3/16" 6061 aluminum alloy isn't easy, but i found a few sheets of curved 3/16" steel plate in my pile of metal (the plates were left over from my Jeep "up armored" project). I first heated up the aluminum until it was really hot, sandwiched it between the two sheets of steel plate, then used the hydraulic shop press to bend the curve. It worked pretty slick. I still need to do some more "fine tuning" of the radius. I'll see if i can get it better tomorrow.






A nice tight fit against the floor struts.

I got lucky bending the aluminum. It went just as easy as i was hoping it would!

A pretty decent fit

I don't have a VB1 centerstand, but i do have plenty of P series centerstands and brackets! The P centerstand is too narrow for the Wideframe, so i'll have to widen the P stand 2". I wanted to install the centerstand bracket cap screws in such a way that they would coincide with the layout spacing of the rest of the M6 cap screws that are attaching the aluminum plate to the frame.

I'm hoping to finish up the floor plate and centerstand next year (which is tomorrow)...










I ran the M6 cap screws every 2" directly through all the layers of the frame's seam.

Pretty cool whodat!

I didn't get quite as far as i wanted to today. The reason being is that had to remove the heater core from my jeep. It's a fairly simple job, but it did burn up some of my time.

I widened a P series centerstand. I made a slug that i sleeved inside the centerstand tube. The slug was actually a long bolt that i found in my shop. The diameter was about .5~1mm too large to fit inside the stand, so i sanded it down until it would fit...with the help of a hammer.


I widened the stand by about 2". Notice that i removed the centerstand bracket that the spring hooks through. I'll relocate it once i mount the exhaust.



It was easy enough to grind a slot in the slug (bolt) so that it would "key" itself into the HREW's inner welded seam.

all welded up!

Awesome !

This thing is taking on a whole steam punk persona.
Love the fix.
Wish my floor boards to left and right of tunnel were as good as yours...

Greek creations by Cris Cofitis…

Iron Horse…
https://www.pulsar-project.com/vespas/iron-horse

Guardian…
https://www.pulsar-project.com/vespas/guardian

Springer Sting
https://www.pulsar-project.com/vespas/springer-sting

WOW! That guy is a true artist!...like above and beyond creative! I'm literally just pulling junk off my shelves and bodging it together with some nappy welds.

Last edited by whodatschrome on Mon, 02 Jan 2023 06:50:57 +0000; edited 1 time

Don't sell yourself short there Kemosabe - you do what us mere mortals only dream of doing...

Not really a full street racer, and not really a full steam punk...perhaps a combo of both...such as a street punk?

I think it would actually be a lot easier to simply replace the whole floor board (and any other of the rusted panels). The absolutely only reason i did not was because i wanted to keep the rust...i mean patina.