Modern Vespa

Going through this bike I bought.

It's the next project. Have to finish the current one.

I'll get back to this in a few months.

Looks like fun.

I love when the Vespa restoration manuals say. These cases are scrap...
I read this often in VW manuals too. The parts decades ago you would just throw away.

From my reading on this forum it seems that these cases are readily weldable and much cheaper to repair than replace.

Shout out to Socalguy for snagging and holding the project for HJ! Looks fun

That was so nice! I love the MV community!!

San Diego is gorgeous this time of year, too.

don't feel obligated to go all chandlerman on us and get it done by next Friday

i will live vicariously on this one through this thread - i was tempted but not tempted enough...

*rings up shop*

hello?

yes. hello. I need a one of everything for a rally 200.

*silence*

uhhh, what?

a one of everything please. for rally 200. thank you.

Lots of hunting for used parts. They pop up, though!

I loved this description on Scooterwest.

"These are rough looking, but will do the job."

The FA Italia ones look ok. But I bet SF Scooter Centre has lots of parts.

As Orwell notes - they are repairable.
The question is - what's the best repair/ least likely to crack again.
There are a couple different ways to tackle - have their own merits
If you wanna post a few more pics of the crack - I'll give my $.02 on how I might approach.
Could at least give you some ammo to speak with a few folks.
Sometimes coming in with ideas can help others sharpen their own.
Even if it is to say - "that's terrible! do it this way instead!"

That is actually a good can of worms.

I'll take more photos. I sent some to Jonathan Gick, and he said he needs to see it in person to assess.

I guess you would have to add a bunch of metal, then mill it back down.

The P case also. The seller said the rotary pad might need JB weld (yikes!), but it looks fine to me.

I'll take photos.

I guess worst case, I could buy a Malossi case.

Well - Gick's the right guy for the job.
This bit here (see green arrow) was baffling me - but its mostly because I'm not as familiar with the cases. Looks like that gap is where the port seems to come down right to he bearing.

Since the seat for the seal is gone - it will have to be milled when done - at a minimum.
Important for that to be dead center - so your seal doesn't wear out prematurely - or just plane leak.

There are heat considerations here also - so sending it along with a bearing that can be tossed away when done - is a good idea to help create a nice heat sink. Ideally - both halves of the case would be assembled - and I might even have a crank in it to soak up even more of that excess heat.
Gold standard would be to take old crank and hack it off - so it is in the bearing - but doesn't stick out proud more than about 5-10mm. This would allow better access for the torch - while providing a kick ass heat sink and minimizing or eliminating any warping. I'd torque the cases down to spec - with no gasket.

Still interested to see a couple photos - but that was sorta my gut reaction to things I might try/ suggest/ if helpful.

Went to the welder today, and they rejected my rally 1 project.

Found another that sounds better, though. A classic car restorer/custom builder, who does small projects on the side.

Since I had both bikes in the car, went to the shop. The frame looks pretty good.

Bummer the first welder didn't work out. Should be for the best tho, as you want someone passionate about the work. Good luck! Or... put in some practice time and zip it together yourself

It's definitely for the best.

This welder was highly recommended, but was like "oh. You don't need to worry about this. paint hides a lot."

And wanted to lap weld the center channel piece on top of the frame bridge.

He was a little freaked out that I made so many notes.

This next one, though, is like a highly skilled custom car build person. He might quote me $5000 or something.

Are the last two pics the "finished" product?
That's not done.

I posted a few pics on Cman's welding thread yesterday. It can be made to look like my last pic pretty easily from this point.

On behalf of Hjo, that is the current condition as acquired. Previous owner got the frame to that point, Hjo is on the hunt for a welder that can finish the job properly.

Yep. It came that way, with this very thick bead along the seam, and the plug welds were domes.

I just ground it down to see what's there.

It's not too bad! but there are some issues with it. There are a few holes, and places where the seam isn't perfectly straight.

Argh. The third brace, too. It has 40 spot welds. That should really be removed, but it does serve a purpose.

It's just not something that was ever on a Rally. Wonder why Sprints had those but Rallys didn't.

Also need to fill/re-drill the holes for the floor rail end caps. They are twice as wide as they should be.

it can all be fixed Its just metal

Yours in that thread is so nice! You can fill even the little holes and blend it perfectly.

This one, I just ground down the weld to see what's there.

It's not too bad! Definitely needs some repair.

I might just end up spending months practicing so I can do this myself. I wish it was easier. I know exactly what I want to do. But when I try, it's messy so far.

My half penny thoughts - you should totally do this work yourself. Most of the hardwok of fitting the new floor has been done. That is a feat in itself. Its all tacked, fitted; and solid. Spend a day or 2 focused on welding practice, and you'll do just fine. Watch videos to get the basics and theory of welding practices. You can totally do this, I know you have the passion! Buy some scrap metal, make all your mistakes there. Practice practice practice

The guy might be a decent welder but it doesn't look like sheet metal is his daily grind...so to speak. Looking at the welding you have done, I agree that you could do a better job than the welder. You would get holes and voids too, but unlike the welder who doesn't give a shit, you do and would go back a fix them. (Which is what you are doing).

You might burn through too, but that happens...even to the pros. It's the nature of restoration as is a weld or panel going to shit. You will make mistakes but you won't melt your Vespa.

I think you're right!

One of the things the welder said, too, was "this could take months. you have to really be in the state of mind to do this kind of work."

Which I kind of get a sense is common. Lots of the welders I found locally have Yelp reviews saying people left things last year and still are waiting.

And the super high end restorer person is going to charge a fortune, I'm sure.

It worried me that as I was trying to explain, the welder's eyes glazed over, and his assumptions were all wrong about how things fit.

There's no real manual for this stuff.

That's a lie. The mock-up I posted on Cman's thread took less than five minutes.
Probably under-bid your project.

You can definitely improve on that work. You'll need to cut some of that out, though. It's too corroded at that big hole to add meat.

Do you have a 1/16th cutting disc?

I'll try to pull a 20ga scrap piece from my heap tomorrow and show how it can be done.

yeah, if it's your own bike, sure. but if somebody is paying you to knock that shizz out? better put on your Johnny hustle pants and chop chop kemosabe.

anyway, welders can kinda be like painters so accept that and position yourself accordingly.

I'd say paying up front so you have some leverage but this isn't really one of those type of situations.

I thought Ray's example of how to weld a gap was excellent.
Cause half the battle in sheet metal is that the two pieces will gap.
Even SMALL gaps are where it want to burn through.

So to add to Ray's tutorial - I would say:
1. Get some clamps. Clamp the crap out of it and work small section if you have to - though it seems most of that has been done on yours?
2. Use a heat sink with the clamps. It's not cheating, its SMART. get yourself a few bits of thick copper you can clamp in place on the back of what you are welding. It will take heat out of the weld - and spread it to the clamps and other metal it is touching. Will give you time, which will translate to less burn through.

I've been using a dremel with a like 1 or 2 mm cutting disc for detail things.

I bought an angle die grinder and 1" sand discs for blending the welds, but the discs die fast, so I used a flap disc on an electric angle grinder.

Painting is the next big one. I have to have a shop do that. There are so many places like this in my neighborhood. What are the odds they're good?

I tried backing it with a copper pipe fitting I bought at the hardware store. Just holding it. That didn't work well. But very thin metal.

zero.

find a custom car painter, like I'm talking old skool hot rods and kustoms. or somebody that specializes in motorcycle paint work. you might be able to get somebody that does high end work- Porsche, MB, BMW, triumphs, jag, et al to tackle it.

have you pumped the local scooter network yet? I mean you've got SF scooter centere, maybe somebody that was at first kick? bello moto, VC Los Gatos, down in San Jose you've got BMW, plus all the local clubs.

custom welding/fab work and paint work generally go hand in hand. so if you can find the right dynamic duo you'll be in like Flynn.

not gonna lie, it's gonna be a pain in all nine assholes. you're dealing with two of the worst subcontracting situations.

at least sand blasters just do shitty work, lose shit and charge you. chrome guys already know and have the lube at the ready, in bulk. but painters and welders are their own fucking breed dude.

I went to a local painter that SF Scooter Centre recommended. Just like a body shop.

I had them paint the headset top and horncast on this one, to match the powder coated body.

They did a nice job. For like $800. (maybe it was $700)

It was as much as powder coating the rest of the bike.

So I'm guessing a whole bike is like $4000 or something.

For good body and paint work, you're thinking along the right lines
Cost of materials, plus the hours and hours of prep work, add's up real real quick.

One hurdle that can be tough in this situation, most peeps dont give a rats tiny azzz about a scootah... they will talk you up, take your money; and turn over terrible work because 'its just a scooter'; barely even worth the effort of hooking up the sprayer if at all. Tapping into scooter peeps for reputable vendors is the best way to go.

Have you tried tig welder ? Might have better luck.
I have one that I can let you borrow.

For grinding I like to use a dremel cutting disc to grind down welds so that the surrounding metal doesn't get thinned out. The weld seam always forms a ditch because of shrinking the weld material and surrounding area. Finish with a flap disc. The weld seam will always be lower than the surrounding metal. If you can get behind it, you can level it with a hammer and dolly. Or you can just skim it with filler as it shouldn't be very deep.

Thanks! I was worried about the flap disc. It can go through the metal so fast.

Thanks about the tig welder!

It looks much harder to use. Is it?

The mig is just point and shoot. but then very hard to calibrate. tig looks like it has a lot more control. I've never tried it.

Not to hard , depending on thickness of metal. Just need to practice.
Recently bought my first ever Vespa love it , was running good now no spark from femsa ign . Removed stator trying to rewire now. Trying to network with other Vespa owners.

Sf. You might first try to disconnect the green kill switch wire from the coil. If that's shorted somewhere it will be in kill mode and u will get no spark. Easy to test.

Thanks will try that, after rewire, had purple wire disconnected at junction box, still no spark. Will start my own post/introduction.

I'm in San Francisco too!

I sent my stator to Scooterwest, and they rewired it and checked all the components. It wasn't too expensive, and they did it on one day. Took a week to mail back and forth.

Could just be a connection too.

This is what my stator looked like after Scooterwest, if it helps.