Modern Vespa

So the journey to rebuild the engine has begun…

Question to the crowd, does this clutch basket look a little tired? Can I grind down those valleys? Would it help? Or just leave it?


Affect the clutch performance?

*I have no idea what the correct answer is *, but I'd think that would interfere with the plates moving up and down, so I'd guess grind down or replace. Also, looking at pictures of new baskets, they don't have that.

that clutch basket is whack, get a replacement

That's scrap, that basket

Great chance to move to straight cut primaries….

Ah well, was hoping to save it, one less part to order.

Looks like I'll be shopping

Looks like the main bearings need to be replaced too.

What's the loctite used for rubber seals?

I use Loctite 680 retaining compound and it hasn't failed me yet.

Righteo!

Cleaning has commenced…

Glad I could source bearings locally…

The small frame is growing on me

Another silly question… I see there's sooo many kickstart gears… what's the difference? The one I pulled from the engine has 15/10 teeth… but mine is a 50s engine… is it wrong? I see some crazy marks on it…

I thought 50s is 12/10 or 12/12… what's the difference? To match the Christmas tree set of gears?


This looks like it's had better days.

Looks like a grinder has attacked it

So I've committed to the egig 170…

There's probably better kits out there, but the deal breaker was that the egig can be installed with zero changes to the crankcase and frame.

Others either have to have the cases dremel-ed or the frame has to be cut (for my 50s)

I always wanted a direct intake too…


Had to file the plate tabs down… apparently it's a thing… makes the tolerances nice and tight…

Clear coated the unisex exhaust

Egig 170 seems like a good cylinder. It's only downfall is the weirdo conrod lenght required on the crank. Remember to take your time to tune the carb right and also to run the cylinder in carefully.

Don't be afraid of modding the cases or the frame. It's more fun to go all-in

Yeah, I don't mind dremelling new SIP smallframe cases (the egig needs grinding down a small part of the case, but you won't be able to tell)… the original case, I'm less wanting to do that, and after seeing the rotary pad being like new too.

Im more than happy to grind and weld away at my PX cases… im less precious about those.

I think at the end of the day I do want the option to go back to stock if I wanted.

The long conrod is strange, but makes sense, no cylinder spigot… so all the movement happens higher up. Kinda smart, but damn it isn't cheap.

I'm very much here for this!

I'm eyeing the egig 170 for my smallie, so I'll be interested to see what you think of it. The way I look at the cost is that the cylinder+crank cost is really not all that different than any other, it's just more crank-heavy than than most, basically the opposite of the "cylinder costs $500 and the crank costs $300" we're used to.

Are you going with the full circle or bell crank?

And where'd you order from? SIP is out of stock, or was yesterday when I looked.

So… I have all the parts with me via SIP, bar 1 item (which is probably the most important one…) which is the cylinder… lol

The whole world is waiting for them, and I messaged Erich at Egig and he said they're coming… but I have a feeling it's gonna be a bit of a wait…

Anyways, unfortunately you have to use the long conrod crank, and as far as I know there's only the full circle one available with a 54mm stroke.

In theory you could make your own crank, there's the conrod sold separately (but I think it's just sold out last time I looked).

All the parts are super sporadic…

if the crank is available, the intake is sold out. If the intake and crank is available, the exhaust is sold out (well I only wanted the unisex…)

But I'm glad I'm slowly building it… because I'm just warming up with getting to know the insides of the smallframe…

But loving it so far… the parts from Egig (clutch, intake, crank) are amazing build (seems like half of it is from Fabbri), and the way the engine is designed, I think it's smarter than a largeframe…

Super excited about this build

Some slow progress, maybe it's because I'm guessing half the time… lol


Rebuilt the primary, clutch basket…

The DRT basket screws unfortunately broke in the basket… but the gear is what's needed

Pressing in the basket, didn't go so well first time…

I had a gap I wanted to shim between the basket and bearing… had to reluctantly hammer it out and give it another go

Looks the business, fingers crossed it's any good

Will change the drive shaft bearing for a sealed one… need to find it in the mountain of bearing parts…