Modern Vespa

It's stuck on the Maginot Line…

Nah, it did the WW1 end around through Belgium to bypass the Siegfried Line and went straight to Paris.

Urgh no way man.

The worst, what a way to spoil the weekend, watching the parcel have all the fun.

Need to get back into it myself. Parmakit has hit a snag.

No kidding. I never get to have a weekend in Paris, much less a free one courtesy of FedEx.

Next week is going to be Scootermas in April, though, with both that package and the Smallstate motor due to arrive, plus no adult supervision from mid-week through the weekend. Oh noes...what's up with that?

SIP package is apparently now stateside and due to arrive tomorrow. It caught the red-eye after its Paris adventure.

Meanwhile, I replaced the 11mm master cylinder with a 14mm for more braking power and tried to do more maintenance than stuff broke on the rest of the herd, with questionable results.


Getting ready

I think the gearbox has sprung a leak. Not had time to update the thread and investigate the leak.

So the Smallstate's motor is back from its California Adventure and back into the bike, so I guess that I should move my updates over here, too.

First off, video or it didn't happen...

Once that was done, I started putting miles on the bike. Break-in for the top end is basically two tanks of gas at 4% mix before I will start to seriously put it through its paces.

In the meantime, I also added a rearview mirror, which required fabricating a bracket. I took a second piece of bar stock and then welded some 1/8" aluminum into the web as a strengthener. I added a bit of inner tube where it sits against the headset as a vibration damper.

Right now, it's longer than it will eventually be, but I wanted to see how the vibration would be with it way out there, as well as how much it improved visibility.

The vibration is minimal and the visibility is amazing, including directly behind me, but I just don't like it much. I marked it in red where I was originally going to put the mirror stem, and I will bring it in an inch or two closer in, probably not all the way to the red marks, though.

I did nothing about the EGT install because I...forgot to order the bung...

So more to come on that, but probably not until the weekend. Updates will be here or maybe I'll start a new EGT thread since it's a topic unto itself.


Ooh....shiny...

have you got one of those little LED marker lights under the mirror mount?

Looking forward to more GoPro videos. The one of your engine seize was epic…not because of the seize but the blasting down the road. I watched it many times.

Yep. It's a pilot light when it's not blinking, too. You can see them in the video in this post if you look for them. I like them a lot. I sprang for an Insta360 X3. Way better than a GoPro. It films the full sphere around you, so you can see and track anything that's visible around you. It's also how I was able to get the throttle/tach/temp videos off my handlebars.

I also have footage from my 86 MPH speed run if you like fast, but I'll have to go back and find it. What's amazing is how not-fast it looked on camera.

The Smallstate got a new horn. Supposed to be 133 dB at 4". I'll have to check it with the meter, but it's pretty freakin' loud.

One of the great things about a rat bike is that you can aesthetically justify pretty much anything that makes pragmatic sense.

I need something like this for my next project. Something MadMax style is very appealing!

I've been half looking for the last couple of months but everything for sale is already restored.

Chandler is single handedly un-restoring this one.

CM, perhaps you could just direct wire the horn to the stator output.

This way, it would be constantly going off, yet modulating slightly with the revs.

I've ridden in Nashville - this isn't as unreasonable as it may first "sound".

I have definitely blown right past "Sleeper Rat" and straight into "Mad Max" territory at this point. That's what the (lack of) silencer is for!

Today was more tweaking. I noticed I was getting some schmutz around the exhaust. I thought it was the gasket blowing through, but it turned out to be leaking through my crappy welds when I installed the EGT bung, so I ground it down and laid down a fresh bead. I upped the voltage and wire speed a touch and got great results, so hopefully the exhaust will now stay in the exhaust like it's supposed to.

I also put somev miles on the bike today. Had it on the highway, but only doing about 60, and temps never got above 280F. I'm still getting over the ROM seize experience. Even if I objectively *know* it was fuel starvation, it still messes with my head a little on the highway.

All in all, a pretty good afternoon, both in the workshop and out terrorizing the streets.

❤️

Can you please share a link?

Rides of March 2023 -- Almost summer in CA (Page 6)

oh it was so hurt

Nothing about that scooter makes pragmatic sense. Don't even try.

Also, true.

There is a lot of beat up sh!t around - the problem is the sellers want a fortune for it.

Literally nothing in the UK at the moment. What price are the 60's beat up models going for over there now?

That dude just blazing past without stopping to help you is priceless. It's like a Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote cartoon.

Yeah, I was definitely feeling the love right about then...

Good sorting and glad you are back on the road!

It's a classic…the hot sun, the horizon, endless ribbon of asphalt, sweat and 2t. The dead stick rollout. It's like a video haiku. Lost track of how many times I've watched it.

SIP just built a smallstate vespacross that has pretty much the same aesthetic as mine--fast as fuck, ugly as hell. They even went with a GPS speedo. All I need to be the stateside twin is a PK fork.

Also, the video is hilarious. It's like they made the entire thing out of out takes.

Only thing missing was an opening were they bro-doze the scoot across the parking lot.

Also:

Why don't you have a PK fork?

I'll buy your disk brake system to fund your PK venture.

I thought about it at one point, but after I did the disc brake and anti-dive, I decided it was Good Enough, I guess.