Modern Vespa

I also have multiple wires connected to the tank itself. I hold them in place with neodymium magnets and that also seems to help.

Boil that dust speck gas tank!
Boil that dust speck gas tank!
Boil that dust speck gas tank!

As Socal suggested, more anodes is better. It allows the current to flow evenly from anode to the part.

My electoysis setup back in the day was a large bucket - completley lined inside with steel mesh. The type you get at the home supply store, small square holes, cheap; easy to replace. Its flexible, and there is alot of surface area even all around. I'd have it hooked up and sitting in the corner of shop with the lid. Just drop in any part, no thinking required.

For the inside of fuel tanks would be a different setup, with a bent piece of steel fitted inside thru the tank cap.

In case I wasn't channeling my Inner Shakespeare hard enough, on my way back from mailing hjo my old Sprint headlight, I stopped by the job site where they were pouring concrete the other day. I scavenged up a fair amount of rebar and an old water meter cover, which I don't actually know what I'm going to do with, but it's gotta weigh about fifty pounds, so I'll find something useful to do with it.

I added the rebar to the mix and now things are really going to town.

I need to space things out better, for that'll work for now.

Also, I received care packages from Summit Racing and Scooter Mercato, so I now have a mudguard as well as all my paint. Once I finish prepping, I'll be able to start painting whenever I have a good time window.

You'll have much better results if the tank is completely submerged as well. I used a 17 gallon bin so I could have it deep enough to cover the whole tank.

I have a bin that will work, I just need to remember to take it out to the workshop

The one con though, is emptying a 17gal container when I was done. Not fun.

I just ignored the gas tank tonight and focused on patching the legshield. I fabricated a piece 22ga sheet metal to match using a 1/2" rod, some 1"x1/8" stock to make a bender, and vice grips.

I then cut the part I needed out of the whole thing and had a pretty good match to the beading.

clean up the legshield itself, grind the new piece until it was a fit, then welded it in place with a series of spot welds and a piece of 11mm aluminum tubing as a backer. It all went pretty smoothly considering I was semi-making it up as I went.

I have some more grinding to do, but I'll use the Dremel for that. Overall, it turned out pretty well. I think that the edge of the horncast where I hit it with the grinder by accident is going to be the more noticable issue in the long run.

And as an added bonus, I finished stripping the outside of the glovebox cowl so I'm almost finished with that portion of the show.

Still not sure if I'll make it to paint by the weekend or not, but I'd sure like to since that'll probably be my last solid window (i.e. no commitments) to do it for a month or so. We'll see...

Nice one!

Nice job CM.
Welding on thin sheet with edges using a wire feed MIG (or flux core?!) is no easy task.
most important bit is gapless fit up if you can.
Doubles the thickness - rather than two separate thin pieces absorbing all that heat.

Loved the whole dissertation by et. al on electrolysis.
I clearly need to up my game.

Thanks, CM!

Yeah, it was shielded MIG.

I practiced to get the voltage right, and should probably have slowed down my wire speed a little, but it was working so I just rolled with it.

The right hand side was less of a gap than the left, and it definitely made a difference. I deliberately set it up so I had a small overlap with reinforcing bar in the back, so the long stretch was pretty easy. Just lots of little spot welds, grind it down, more spot welds, grind it again. Using the aluminum tubing as a backer also made a big difference.

It also helps that most of it is going to be covered by the legshield beading, but I'd still like to get it right on principle.

Impressive!

Pick up an 80 grit flap disk to use with your angle grinder. Sculpt it.

Weld-fill low spots and repeat.

You are a mad man!! Didn't you just get this project like 2 days ago

I'm past the grinder stage at this point. Too many curves, inside corners, and just generally tight space for that. What's left is Dremel-scale, but the process will be the same. I already did a couple rounds of weld-filling, and am pleasantly surprised at how well it's going. I actually started it a week ago today, now that you mention it...

My wife has been down in Texas helping her mom (who came over from the UK, so can't drive, understand America, etc.) get *her* mother (wife's grandmother) into hospice. She's going to be gone through the weekend which means that I have Friday night, plus all of Saturday & Sunday as a solid window to work, which is ideal for paint if I can get there:
Friday night: final prep and DTM Epoxy
Saturday: High-build primer, sanding, any body filler needed, re-prime
Sunday: Wet-sand, re-prep, top coat

I'm afraid I have more than two evenings worth of work to get there, but we'll see. The paint is all off other than some spots inside the cowls. I've gotten the dents out of the frame. It'll mostly come down to how fast the rest of the panel beating goes and if the gas tank is ready for paint by then.

Wow! You are on fire. I am so slow. Too much overthinking. If I were helping with someone else's project, I would be a lot faster and the work would still be decent quality.

I really like fabbing and welding weird shaped bits. That's sort of my thing...much more than engine building.

The gas tank is its own trip. I'm working on one now. What looked like rust was a thick leathery layer of brown sealer (the rust was underneath). Soaked a couple days in acetone and it's gone. Filled with gravel, wrapped in blankets and into the drier. Filled with Ospho and rotated every 24 hours. It's coming along.

What *is* that piece of metal? It had to be a bear to fab, for sure.

I'm really enjoying the welding now that I'm approaching some minimal level of competence at it--I now know enough to know when it's wrong, which is the first step to getting things right.

I have a lot of work to do, and I'll get focused on a project like that and just *need* to get it to some finish line, whatever that may be.

I turned the gas tank over this morning to do the bit that was sticking out and I think it's going to be ready for the paint pipeline as of tonight, so now it's down to finishing up the legshield repair as the big variable.

I only have one big dent to deal with in the glovebox, but it's a BIG dent. A truck backed into me while I was street parked at the train station one time and I think it somehow pushed into me rather than just knocking me over. It was someone else who parked there on a regular basis, and they offered to pay, but I knew they didn't have any money, so I told them not to worry about it.

As to your tank, Orwell, someone put one of those pour-in tank liner things in it rather than trying to get the rust out properly. they always flake/peel off like that, leaving even nastier rust underneath.

Looking at your more recent picture, I see what you mean.

Not sure if you're working with these, but the blending disk (aka flap disc) is a follow-up to grinding. Leaves a very smooth surface.

They initially have a square side that sculpts/cleans the inside angle of the legshield trim channel very nicely. The square side will wear rapidly, leaving a more rounded disc to work on other areas.

https://www.amazon.com/KSEIBI-Aluminum-Oxide-Sanding-Grinding/dp/B073PRM7L7/ref=sr_1_9?crid=2F9JMIA9NG0YO&keywords=flap%2Bdisc%2B80%2Bgrit&qid=1642612161&sprefix=flap%2Bdisc%2Caps%2C245&sr=8-9&th=1

For an even smoother prep after, these guys are great. Also cleans leftover paint bits:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08MTSLHBG/ref=ox_sc_saved_title_3?smid=A187GE3LU0HE29&psc=1

I'm old skool for the paint and rust removal, just using a wire wheel.

I usually use my random orbit sander with 80 or 120 grit paper rather flapper wheels unless it's just a spot area because I can hook my shop vac up to the sander and minimize the dust.

In this case, I still need to get back after the legshield with my Dremel, and I'll probably hand-sand to finish it off once that's complete.

I took last night off and read a book because I was feeling tired and have pretty much decided I'm not going to try to power through to paint this weekend. Maybe I'll do the DTM just to get everything sealed up nicely, but that's it. (I say that now)

I also still have the headset, fork and rims to tear down and prep for paint. I'd love to be able to do my own powdercoating, but that's not going to happen for this project. I should've ordered some black paint with my Summit Racing order, but just plain forgot. Meh.

Meanwhile, after a few days off, I made some progress today. I've managed to give myself some significant tendonitis in my right hand, which pretty much sucks, but nothing I can do but take Alleve and wait.

I still finished up the last of the stripping, hammered out that big-ass dent in the glovebox, then tore down the front fork.

The fork was one of the Bajaj forks that SIP sold (sells?) and they straight up said it was not a quality product, but since it was that or find an OG fork, I went with it. I had to replace the hub and axle with my VBB's hub and axle because the lug plate was welded off center from the axle. The plastic they put on the fork itself to protect it during shipping was wrapped while the paint was still wet, so this thing has been in need of a new paint job since before it was even new.

That, along with hubs, rims, and centerstand (in case I don't go with the side stand) will get prepped and probably painted black ahead of everything else. Then I'll get back to the actual body.

Big ass dent-be-gone: do you buy it by the gallon?

Nice work!

I get it in the five gallon bucket. The gallon jug just doesn't last around my workshop.

Today, I got back at it and sanded, etched, prepped, and got things halfway DTM Primed.

I was hoping that I'd have been able to flip things over and finish it up, but things were still too soft, so it'll have to wait until I can get back out there, maybe lunchtime tomorrow.

I wound up with some drips, which was irritating, but I'm not losing sleep over it since I'll just knock them down when I block sand.

Nice work CM! You're on a rolling roll

The speed of your rebuild progress here is "Ludicrous".

Amazing. And looks great so far.

The DTM dripped more than I was expecting. Fortunately, it hardened up overnight, so I'm probably going to sneak out at lunch at shoot the topsides so it'll at least be stable.

I'd like to get some high-build shot, too, while I'm still in the window for chemical adhesion. After that, it'll be time for filling and re-priming, but progress is going to slow down now that my wife will be back in town so I'll have Adult Supervision again to keep me from living a life that's basically "sleep, work, work on scooters, post on MV, order scooter stuff, sleep."

I'm getting pretty excited to see the orange in action, but I also know that not rushing to paint over the weekend was the correct move.

On a semi-related issue, what're people's thoughts on completely murdering out the trim? I'm talking painting everything hot rod satin black: Floor rails, legshield beading, headlight bezel, legshield badge, the part of the headset that would normally be bare aluminum, all of it.

Would it be too much? And will it hold up? I'd use 2k urethane, same as the body.

Opinions are appreciated.

Sounds like Halloween and I like that!
Do what speaks to you and gets ya excited for sure.

I like the idea of a black bezel and rubbers. Personally I'd stay away for the leg shield trim and floor rails. But that's just me... maybe its because I just saw this in deal of the day and didn't like the cowl [edit- I meant leg shield] trim much?

I'm kinda down with the blacked out look but I could go either way. If you do go blacked out I think the fork and everything (drums etc) should go too. All in or all out.

A little googling led me to Lee Lux's wife's Stella where he did something similar.



I was on the fence about the floor rails, if only because if the wear and tear they receive, so I think they'll just get polished up, but not painted. I think the legshield beading, headlight bezel, and fender crest will all get the black treatment, though.

And I'd love to find a black checkered racing stripe decal to put down the right side of the legshield, but I want just the black, no white, and can't seem to find it. Anyone seen anything like that in the world?

I was already planning on doing the fork and drums, similar to the GL. Probably the same shock, and I already have a black buffer spring, so that won't even require any more work than it was already going to.

Then you're already half in….

of course floor rails do take abuse, but if something else replaced the rails, it might fare better... full on heretic mode = black diamond plate, but how could that fare better?

If anything, it'd probably fare worse since it'd be shoes, dirt, etc. directly on the metal. Plus, I've never been a fan of the diamond plate look.

I think I have the plan nailed down in my head, now it's time to execute. I also wish I'd ordered a quart of hotrod black when I ordered the orange so I wouldn't have to pay shipping, but them's the breaks, I guess.

Feel free to ignore - but I'd go all body color on everything but rubber/wheels/suspension - If I wanted bad assery.
Orange is a weird color.
It's awesome - but you have to be selective with what you go black with to avoid creating a pumpkin.

That Stella you just posted looks good.
It's always a fine balance.
Choosing color is a flip flop decision making process!

Here are a couple to throw in your consideration bucket.

^^^ That last one is straight fire.

yeah the rally does really look good. tough calls.

and yeah I'm not really into the diamond plate either but it depends on the look you're after. It really can't hold up better, unless you powder coat it. That shit might hold up well.

That last one is pretty much exactly what I did with the chrome vs. black on my GL, and I can't quite decide if it works because it's basically monochrome with the gunmetal paint, or Just Works in general.

That Smallie is one that I found in my searching and like the look of a lot. The more I look at this and think about it, the more I start to go back to black cowl rubber and running gear, but keep the chrome for the floor rails, beading, light bezel, etc.

Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself and should wait until I can see the actual color on the bike before I commit.

I think you're ok with standard rails no matter what you do for the rest

Yup. I've 100% talked myself back from that stance.

The only other thing I really need to commit on up front will be the legshield beading, but I'm now leaning toward keeping it aluminum.

black rubber is easily traded out for aluminum later, just saying...

My personal opinion, FWIW, is to keep the chrome and add some black accents. The chrome/aluminum really sets off the vintage lines. The factory used it sparingly but for maximum effect. The blacked out look is cool but lends itself more to P series bikes.