Modern Vespa

What does the spring on the end of the steering lock cylinder stop against inside the housing? One end rests against the cylinder. What does the other end rest against? Does it ride on the steering stem/fork?

Thanks in advance. Read a lot of threads in the past couple weeks. Picked up an 80 P200e and have been fixing small things so far.

I think I have my question answered. The fork tube on my particular scooter, looks to have maybe been drilled out. There is no normal slot for the end of the lock cylinder. That is to say, there is just a giant hole in the fork. The spring on the end of the cylinder, I believe is supposed to ride across the narrow slot. With the giant hole, the same size as the whole cylinder, the lock spring just falls in and then gets jammed when the handlebars are turned. Guess I have some welding to do whenever I pull the front end apart.

Column could have been damaged previously? pics?

There's a good Robot vid about locks that may help. Let me see if I can find it...

Maybe around 20 or 25 minutes in he talks about fitment.

Yeah, watched that vid, several times. I am sure it's been drilled out or something. There is no "slot" like I have seen on several other forks as seen in other vids and google image searches. I was aware of the different sized cylinders (4mm vs 6mm) but thought I knew the difference from my research. Ordered a 4mm kit and then found I had a 6mm bike. When I pulled the previously installed and ill-fitting 4mm cylinder, I found the spring 65% inside the fork and causing a bind. If I install a new one, it will go into the fork and get cut/bound on the first turn to the left. Heck, I may just install a Stella fork for the disc brake and fix it then. I have a pic, but should probably take a better one before posting.

Do you have a photo?

The spring just goes in before the lock. There's a metal ring that is riveted in to keep the lock from popping out.

With steering turned to the left. Pretty sure you shouldn't be able to see the speedo cable, lol. And then a pic off SW website for a Stella fork, if I recall.

That looks a little ground out. Things look rounded and and maybe enlarged where the cylinders go.

But the lock will probably fit in there and work.

The fork part looks strange. It looks rounded in the photo, but it's squared off slot on the P fork.

Might be a different fork that was modified to fit on there?

Try a lock! It might work. I suspect it might just have some play in locked position.

[edit] I missed your second post.

That makes sense if it was drilled out. It shouldn't be round.

You don't need the spring for it to work, though. It just helps it pop into the unlocked position.

But if you can weld it, probably ideal. It could be that it's a fork for a later model, and someone modified it to fit the lock.

It has a lot of play in the locked position, LOL. And the cylinder itself is fairly loose in the housing. But I did go ahead and put it in without the spring. Hopefully it doesn't rattle too much. Been fixing several other noisy bits and hate to add to them. But it looks complete for now and fairly functional. Thanks for your time!

Lock body looks like it was drilled larger. Normally there's a catch at the end that's why the spring is conical…