Modern Vespa

Thanks! It's one of those details that makes me want to throw the bike down the stairs. I have a few choices at this point:

Try a different brand of the same style trim.

Try heating up the trim before installing to prevent the stress cracks at the bends.

Buy the crimp tool and a few pieces of the original style trim and make becoming an expert Vespa trim installer a personal crusade.

Get on with it and put the rest of the bike together. You mentioned the turn signals. Flaws also get lost in the clutter of badges and all the other stuff that goes on the bike.

Perfect is not only the enemy of the good. It's also the enemy of done, sanity and having any fun.

I wouldn't mind seeing you do a tutorial on rolling your edge trim with that trim tool. Your trim doesn't look bad from the pics but who knows until it's all put together and out in the sun for the photo shoot. Aggravating for sure. Nothing like a stiff drink to help decide what comes next.

I'm about to roll some trim so I'll shoot video when I do.

Pretty sure that anyone who is good at installing the original trim muffed it their first couple of times.

I didn't mind sanding down and respraying the scooter a few times before I was happy with it. It was worth it because the skill set will help with future projects. Vespa trim is kind of a niche thing.

Definitely. It's a bit of a black art, especially combining repop trim with a legshield that might have Seen Some Things since it was manufactured.

Absolutely! I'm at the verge of terrified to install trim over new paint. I would definitely need to sacrifice some trim on something else before attempting a final install. Don't think I'll be using any on the GS but my P will need some.

The clip on legshield trim is a piece of aluminum laminated in thick plastic. The stress cracks happen when the aluminum separates from the laminate.

I found that going over it carefully with a heat gun gets rid of a lot of it. A quick pass and it fogs over then clears up. I guess it melts the layers back together. Not perfect, but much better.

More not so exciting progress. Stuff I had to get done before putting the floor rails on.

Cleaned, deburred and polished the crusty floor rails that came off the bike. Probably quicker and easier than fitting new ones. Cleaned up the old end caps as the new ones I ordered were the PX type. I was missing one, so I had to drill a new one out to match. I also got the trim drilled and lined up with the floor rail properly. Fingers crossed.

Time has been a bit short lately, but I have next week off. It's starting to look like we might have an early riding season.

Awhile back I was asking for feedback on a VR-1 based engine I'm going to build. It's not really in the budget at the moment. I think I would rather sort out the heat issues with the VMC 187 and just see it through. It's a lot of fun to ride in a way that the 200 isn't and I'm curious about trying out some of the suggestions for making it run cooler.

I started color sanding the 200 before more trim goes on. It's coming out better than expected. Problem solving and learning new skills are big parts of why I enjoy these kinds of projects.

That paint looks amazeballs!

How fine did you go with the color sanding? 3000 grit? Then compound, then polish?

This is obviously extra-relevant for me right now.

Looking great! Totally worth the extra effort. I always forget to wear an apron and get covered in compound.
By the way, I have a big sheet of 1/4 inch thick aluminum that I used in making my leak checker. If you want a piece to block off your intake let me know what size you want and I'll send it in the mail. Also have the rubber to seal it with.

Thanks! I sanded with 2500. I find when I go over it with 3000, then 5000, it doesn't make much of a difference if I am hitting it with the big wool buffer. 2500 was coarse enough to flat out the peel I had. I try to get it mostly flat and dull, but don't chase out every speck of peel. Going up to 3000, then 5000 seems to help in the nooks and crannies, because you can do the 100/205 compound by hand.

Otherwise, wool buffer with McGuires 100, followed by foam pad with McG 205. Still kind of experimenting. The foam pad doesn't seem to do much.

When I'm done, all I see are flaws, but you gotta know when to quit fussing. Always looks better the next morning.

Me two months ago: Told ya.

For sure! Sort of like using paint for primer.

But sanding it all down and reshooting was the easiest and fastest way to go. The cowls and glovebox got painted 3 times. Mostly the improvement was from learning from my mistakes. Because of its small size, it's a perfect project for learning how to paint. Also makes you a better painter because you have to adjust the gun a lot to fog in small spaces and paint difficult curves and angles without drowning them.

I'm having a tough time finding paint for the fork, rims and hubs.

I'm looking for a 2k single stage urethane aluminum color in satin. Only thing I've found are the spray max cans. They are kind of expensive for the quantity of paint you get and have a limited life span once you activate them.

It might be a better idea to get it from the paint store and have them mix in a flattening agent. A quart would be plenty and the activator works with all the other urethanes I use.

Trim looks great.

https://tcpglobal.com/collections/hot-rod-flatz-paint-sterling-silver-metallic/products/kus-kit-hrf2101-m-qt



This might work out for you and free shipping. I just want you to know that any paint info I share with you is based entirely on personal experience and the experience of the paintshop at my work. Painting isn't easy and has been extremely aggravating at times, for me at least, over the years. I am nowhere close to being a pro and I hope the info I've shared makes your projects easier. If there's any questions you have feel free to message me and if I don't know the answer my paint pro friends would. Your scoot is looking great! You've done an awesome job. Love that you want to do everything yourself. The rewards are greater in the end.
Same goes for my threads. If you have the hot tip of the day, let me have it. You've certainly been poking around Vespas longer than I have. I started in 2008 but had a long hiatus. Wish I joined MV back in the day.

That should work. Thanks. I might have seen that before, but decided against it because the shipping would take awhile. But I can just rearrange when I do what. My paint store isn't great depending on who's working at the time. I might get the guy who has been there forever. Or the 12 year old girl.

I might get some myself. I originally got a pint of the metallic silver for the wheels and suspension parts and have a tiny bit left. Of course now I need to shoot a couple more parts. I can't get that same paint anymore. That hot rod comes in so many different shades. Another hurdle. 😂 It's hard to find a good metallic single stage.

I guess not many people buy single stage urethane, even for vintage restos.

They definitely gave me funny looks at the paint store when I bought single stage for the Smallstate.

I get funny looks pretty much everywhere I go to buy automotive anything.

I get funny looks pretty much anywhere I go, full stop.

Is it just me or have you noticed that whodatschrome can paint something outside on a piece of cardboard and it looks perfect? I think he's hiding something from us.

I know! In the Oregon humidity and chill. But then I see him weld... anything! Then he takes a bmx bicycle and rides it 200 miles in the STP (Seattle to Portland), and drives straight over a thousand miles to pit crew for some desert racers, and leaves the Run From The Sun rally at 10pm on the full DC converted scooter and lights up the area like a spaceship! And builds all kinds of cool rolling vehicles...

As far as I'm concerned, the dudes a legend, a legend that still walks among us mere humans.

LOL...i actually took 2 years of automotive paint classes when i went to community college (along with all the other standard classes as well...reading, riting, and rithmatic). The class was something like 3 or 4 hours a day x5 days a week. I then worked at a body shop for a couple years after that. This was all back in the mid 90's. It was also when PPG products were dirt cheap to buy. A quart of DP primer was something like $25. I did a few complete paint jobs on different friends' full size trucks for less than $250 of PPG paint material!

I think what gives me the edge for getting good results in my paint jobs is that i have just enough experience to know when a problem is about to happen, and then knowing how to circumvent that potential problem right before it happens.

A genuine thank you for the accolades Scott! Interesting enough, i have actually heard this on multiple occasions, but disappointingly never from the women. Actually i'm no different from any other man. I'm just single so that allows me to do other things that a married man can't always get away with. It's definitely a trade off though. Sometimes i can get a little bit envious of my friends who have a healthy marriage, but i can purge that thought pretty quick when i step into my shop.

For sure! Your work is impressive and your advice, much appreciated.

The excitement continues with floor rails…well actually, one end cap. Seems I only ordered enough solid rivets for endcaps thinking I would only use them there and pop rivets everywhere else.

I'm finding that pop rivets aren't working out very well, even with rivet washers. The expanded ends always look like ass even though you can't really see them. The solid rivets just plain work better. It's a long and tedious job but not technically difficult. Just wish I could find some locally as I will be waiting for parts again.

The trick to hand-peening rivets is to get a really heavy bucking bar.

I use an old DR cylinder, which has plenty of mass and the fin fits into the floor rail easily. I can do them in no time that way.

I have rivets for you but you would need a bucking bar and rivet gun. Unfortunately we don't use the soft rivets much and I don't know if the SIP tool could get it done.🤷🏼

I gave the pop rivets a try. Set them from the bottom and peened them over on top with a washer. It works, but probably takes longer than peening solid rivets and the rubber strips will be harder to fit. The solid rivets are easy enough. The heavier bucking bar is a great idea. Air hammer isn't necessary. I'm out of town for most of the week so I might as well just order more solid rivets.

Are you going to replace the pulled rivets with solids? I didn't know the rail kits for the Ps came with pop rivets. That's cheap. I'll keep that in mind when I do my P200.

Yeah…probably. The rails were what was on the bike. All the restoration books I read talked about the solid rivets like it was a disaster waiting to happen. It's actually pretty easy.

I was just going to go for it to get it done, but the pop rivets are more work and they still suck. I won't be able to get back to it until the weekend anyway, so might as well get the right part.

Pop rivets were used later on PXs with closed end caps and because it was a speedier way down the assembly line…

One more.... (Post 2617235)

My Stella uses the closed end caps. The expanded pop rivets hold them in place. Solid rivets are used everywhere else. I wonder if PX's were the same. I ordered an assortment of solid rivets from Amazon as well as the TCP silver paint recommended earlier. I should have the rivets at least by Friday. It's really not such a bad job.

So here's what's left:

Sandblast rear hub, seat frame and 3 wheels.

Epoxy prime and paint front fork, rims, hubs, engine/carb box cover, battery bracket, headlight rim and seat frame.

Front fork install with new column bearings.

Recover seat. I got hold of a huge piece of thick, dense foam. I'm thinking I can sculpt it with a sawzall with a coarse blade.

After that I should be back in familiar territory. All the jobs left after this are things I have done before. There's also lots of hardware that will be replaced or dremeled clean depending what it is. Oh yeah, and sending the speedo to speedo king.

This stuff takes an unbelievably long time. At some point while I have all the sandblasting stuff out in the yard, I might throw the VBB frame out there and give it a going over.

I am hoping to get my bus in paint before next winter. There are a couple of small welding job's left, but the metal is pretty much done. I'm thinking of folding the VBB into the whole project; primer, filler and paint work at the same time while everything is out. The VBB is going to be the same color as my bus. That will be the end of big restoration projects. There are a lot of smaller scale metal work projects I would like to do that have a smaller, less toxic footprint.

This rivet thing is kicking my ass. Got a big assortment of M4 rivets from Amazon. They're too big! Should have ordered M3. Ever get to the point where you're just gonna make whatever work just to get done?

Giving each rivet a spin in the drill chuck with a coarse file. Also rounding the rivet head and making it a bit smaller to fit in the rail. Check with caliper. 10 more to go. Redneck lathe to the rescue!

Makes me feel like a crazy person…or like I'm working on the bus. Sheesh.

I had no problem finding the correct size rivets on Amazon. Bought a pound of them when I did the GL, so I'm set for about three lifetimes.

It's my fault. I ordered the wrong size.

It's not even resizing the rivets that had made it slow going. Peening the rivets that sit in the crease along the edge of the floor are a pain. But I'm getting the hang of it.

I broke down and bought the rivet tool and correct rivets from Scooter Mercato. Peening the wrong rivets by hand works, but is agonizingly slow.

My tools pay my bills. Sometimes I can fab them but paying for them doesn't upset me anymore. I'll complain about $12 at a fast food place but spending $300 on a little torque wrench is totally fine. That's my world.🤣😂 I try to buy the best I can so I never have to buy it again. Oh yeah, I have a Vespa tool section now.