Modern Vespa

**Long boring story alert**

So…. About a year and a half ago my wife convinced me to buy this POS Stella from some strange neighbor's driveway. She said it would be a great project for me and my son to get it running. Knowing nothing about scooters and being impressionable, optimistic and bored I bought it for $200. No title, reg or anything. I figured if nothing else it would be fun to mess around with.



I sent a pic to an old friend who had a '79 Vespa P200e and said "what do you think?" He said "go push it off a cliff." I didn't. Instead I parked it in the garage where it stayed. He called back a week later and said "you know that old Vespa I had has just been sitting in the garage the past 20 years and my kids have no interest. If you want it it's yours." I hadn't been *looking* to take on a scooter, but hey, free scooter. I arranged transportation from Boise, ID to Redondo Beach, CA through another friend and waited and waited until he was making a trip out and it finally arrived in my garage 2 weeks ago.



I have absolutely no experience with two-wheeled vehicles other than riding friends' bikes once in a blue moon (I've ridden this one on several occasions), never mind any experience with 2-stroke motors. So to say I was apprehensive about trying to start this thing before ensuring that everything was okay is an understatement. In the meantime I've been downloading and ebaying all sorts of books, owner's manuals, parts catalogs, service station manuals and amendments to service station manuals that I can find, trying to amass some sort of confidence to get it ready to run, as 20 years idle seems like a long time to me.

Last weekend I took the Stella out of the garage and started to take it apart thinking that perhaps I could scavenge parts from it (maybe the fork, disc brake or even fasteners), but everything was so far gone, all I took was the little mohawk front-fender trim and the gas tank (just in case). I left the bones out on the street with a "please take me" sign and it was gone in a half hour (good riddance!).



At this point I'm left with the P200e, fender trim, and a gas tank, waiting for some more literature to arrive before I start tearing into this thing. Strangley, my Vespa-gifting friend came out with his family last night as they were to leave on a cruise today departing nearby. We went out to the garage this morning to check it out (why? He just got rid of it!). He asked if I'd started it, I said "not yet, you think it'll start?" He told me he rode it last year. OK. I opened the gas tank and there was fuel in it and it was super clean. He turned the fuel on, pulled out the choke and it started first kick (albeit very smokily!). Damn! It works!!! (Sorry, no video)

So now I've got a running scooter with crap tires, sticky cables and a non-functioning oil-injection system. It hasn't been registered since 2003 (in Idaho) and I my plan is figuring out how to get it running properly and safely with my son and register it in CA. The thought is just using it to putt around town for now. The paperwork lists it as a 1980, but from what I've read the VIN/serial (255##) actually falls in the 1979 range (*weird*). As it stands it has 6,503 miles. My buddy told me that he bought it around 1995 and drove it around 500 miles since then (17 miles/year!).



He said that when he got it, he put a new-to-him gas tank in it as the old one had rusted, and that the PO had crimped off the oil-feed line and that he had just been mixing the oil in at fill-ups. While my inner nerd thinks it would be cool to get everything running as it left the factory, his "I throw the oil in the gas tank because what if the oil-injection system fails" logic does seem to make sense.

Other stuff… Not certain what the color is (China Blue?), but I do know that the cowls are not original paint. There are some corroded bits, like the bottom edge of the left-side cowl, the center tunnel bolts and the surrounding floor. The seat cover is not original, nor is the gas tank. The tires are toast. The bellows is torn. The oil system is non-functioning. The horn apparently doesn't work (he said it'll start smoking if you try to honk!). Presently there's no battery. The mud-guard is cracked. There are rivets and trim missing from the outside-front floor trim pieces. The oil sight-glass is oxidized. And most of the chrome is a bit corroded. He said the front brakes are new, but that they suck (but perhaps that is just a general statement, rather than pointed at this specific bike). Finally, I did buy an OE toolkit on here as the original must have vanished at some point (thanks caschnd1!).

OK, now on to the rest of the pics...










Missing trim ends and rivets


Conditioned the mat and polished the keepers and hardware




Crash bars have pushed up the floor


A bit of rust on the left side...


Not as much on the right.


More rust on the underside of the left cowl...


But none on the right.


Guess I need a battery.








Date code 0602. Yikes.


Original seat but after market cover?


Donor tank.




Pretty faded.


Kill switch broken.




BBQ rack needs to be cleaned up.


Box of random stuff. Not sure what the springs, gear, clip or hook-looking thing are.

That's it! Hoping that I'll have some time to really dive into this and learn more soon.

How come none of my friends ever call me and say: "Hey, dude. I've got this original top of the line classic scoot in all but pristine condition that I need gone for free. We bought a new lawn mower and I need the space?" Hell, I don't even get wind of the Stella left on the curb.

Huge huge score. Great looking scoot. Good luck with it.

Parts: Mirror mount, center stand boot, center stand spring, center stand spring retainer, autolube gear(?), mixing cup.

PS: Scooter help says its a '79.

https://www.scooterhelp.com/scooters/VSX1T.p200.html

I would have snagged the Stella front fork before throwing it off a cliff, but very nice 200.

Deal of the century! My Honda Spree was free and a customer gave me a small sailboat with a trailer but you really scored!
+1 on that Stella fork Orwell.

Well you wouldn't know that if you were new to Vespas. It's a great score. I really like P200's. They look vintage enough to me at 40+ years of age with an engine that delivers reliable long distance cruising speeds right from the factory. Lots of easy to find spare parts available, straightforward to work on…What's not to love?

Wow.

Some things:
You should be able to restore that autolube. Hopefully someone just pulled the gear (the one you have in the tub). You have the tank there.
Horn, turn signals and tail lights run off the battery. Headlight is AC off the regulator behind the battery.
If you want to keep the original fuel lever, replace the tap with a (smoother) SIP faster flow. With the original tap, that plastic will break at the worst time.
Go to the SIP website, enter your model and click on Explos to find replacement parts and bits.
Grabor still makes those switches. Not a lot of dough either.
You can replace the cables only, but long-wire pull-replacing the outers makes a big difference, especially the front brake, clutch and shifters.
Replacing seals can be done in-frame. Watch this several times before doing anything:

&list=PLmZN6ewY34hgy1Mf3XPtBlNM4Pw39ZkHb&index=2&t=2695s

HA! Thanks!!!

We all get lucky now and then. This time it was my turn!

I think you might be right about the autolube gear, now that I've been looking into it a bit. And yeah, Scooterhelp is where I got the model year info. Funny how sometimes the DMV guesstimates on stuff. That was my intention, but *another long-winded story alert*...

After seeing the POS Stella that I rolled home last year, my mailman told me that the old man I bought it from has a son who was a bit "troubled" and that he probably stole it and wouldn't trust that the thing as far as he could throw it. Not wanting to get into a back and forth about its origin with the old man, I just let it sit. As I started getting into it, it DID in fact look like it was assembled by a blindman with a welder. It was rusty as hell, the wiring loom was cut in several places for no apparent reason, parts missing, crap welded onto it for no reason. In the end, I didn't trust anything that had touched it and it just felt like bad juju to try to use anything off of it. If you've seen what Sprees are fetching these days, it seems that you scored too! The boat on the other hand... my father in law, who was a used boat dealer, always said that the two happiest days of any boat owner are the day they buy it and the day they sell it. Yeah I DO appreciate the aesthetics. And from what I've read so far on the forums they do seems to be relatively reliable/simple to DIY on. And the parts aren't wallet-killers either. I'm going back and forth on restoring the auto-lube or not. My OCD tendencies lead me towards stuff being period-correct and often times as it left the factory. That being said, I'm also feeling like I may be getting ahead of myself and dorking out too hard. At this point I might just put my inner-nerd on hold, start riding it around as is and pre-mix for a bit and enjoy it as I get a feeling for the thing.

Thanks for the heads up about the fuel lever. It seems a little wonky to me.

I've been having a difficult time trying to determine and find OE parts. Are they mostly available? Was Grabor the OEM for those switches??? I feel like since they started making them in India it's gotten confusing.

Since tearing into the POS Stella, two things are a bit intimidating to me... The wiring harness and the cabling. Seems that you need to tear the bike down pretty far to do either correctly. Not sure I want to go there JUST YET. But we'll see. Wondering if I can band-aid it by somehow lubing the existing cabling. As for the wiring harness, the horn that causes smoke will definitely gnaw at me.

I'm in the process of a nut and bolt restoration of a '77 P200E. As expected, it has taken longer and cost more than I planned. I have another rideable scooter so I work on the 200 as time and budget permit, so I'm absolutely fine with the way it's going.

I would advise against pulling it all apart at this stage, unless you have done this kind of thing before and have no set date to actually ride it.

Changing cables, fixing wiring, even rebuilding the engine can all be done without pulling it to bits. Focus on the parts that make it stop and make it go. Clean it up, treat the rust and make it safe and reliable. The things the scooter needs will make themselves known and you will have your hands full sorting those out

As for parts, trying to get OEM parts might just get you an OEM box with the same overseas parts. I get most of my parts from Scooter Mercato. They have been hugely helpful and have given me tons of great advice. When I ask, they tell me openly when I should pay extra for an OEM part or when it's just the same thing in an Italian box.

Wow that looks amazing so far. I sort of imagined the inflating timeline/budget would be the name of the game if I started getting into it. I have a tough time knowing when to say when "while I'm in there" and usually want to keep going until everything is new and refreshed. I don't have a set date I HAVE to ride it. But I also want to see where it's at presently. Originally I thought it had been sitting completely idle for the past 20 years. Now that I know it was ridden a year ago, I'm not in such a hurry to break it down to nuts and bolts.

I haven't ever owned a scooter or motorcycle. Most of my mechanical knowledge comes from working on German cars. The various forums online have been great for building my confidence to work on them over the past 15 years. I think this is the plan I will move forward with. Ugghhh. Aftermarket parts in a OEM box? What a bummer. Does Piaggio still supply OE parts for these, or is everything OEM, aftermarket and Indian?

I've been checking out Scooter Mercato the past few days. They seem to be legit. Can't quite get a read on Scooterwest yet, but I'm sure I will as I research more.

Thanks for the help so far!

Lucky SOB. Lucky bastard (I hope you can handle humor and sarcasm well) . Jokes aside, what a great deal. I would have purchased that Stella for $200 too, it still has a lot of usable parts. You scored and I am envious about it.

Never say no to a free vespa P 200e, never!!! Thanks for sharing. Your friend is too nice, I personally wouldn't let go a P200E for free, no way. I love the blue color. Let me know if you need some parts, I have a few things for P200E, exhaust, cylinders, stators, voltage regulators and other things.

By the way, not boring story at all, we love it. Another P200E that gets back on the road instead of being in the shadows. Thanks for posting this and sharing the pictures and the story.

I'm also a VW guy. You will definitely have an easily transferable skill set as well as the required frustration tolerance. The biggest difference for me was getting used to working with smaller parts in tighter spaces.

You will be happy to find that aftermarket Vespa parts are nowhere near as awful as the crap that is available for VW. There are some turds out there, but generally there are quality options for most parts from bone stock to high performance with everything in between.

Congrats. Great bike, great paint. Good luck with it.

Yeah I'm lucky to have this gem of a friend! But I did give him and his family a ride to the Port of LA the other day, so we're calling it even. HA!

I will definitely let you know if I'm in need of anything as I start discovering what needs to be replaced. I'm going to just be starting with the superficial stuff for now.

As an aside, I went to school at U of A in the mid-90s, but also spent a decent amount of time in Tucson from the 70s-on (grandparents lived there). Many good times were had. I really love it and miss it. I love how two scooters will fit in a Westfalia. And that is a VERY clean motor! What's it from? A 200???

I'm used to working on slightly more modern stuff than the Vespa. And strangely, even though I've owned several VWs (1995 Jetta, 2017 Atlas and 2019 Golf R), I don't do any work on them myself.

I had a 2002 BMW 540 wagon that I used to wrench on that would try my patience and ingenuity. Their over-engineering seems cool until it's out of warranty. Annual cooling system replacements, water-cooled alternators, self-leveling suspension on airbags that need to be replaced, constant scary electrical issues, the list goes on and on. It now lives at my mechanic's as I got sick of the repetitive expense due to poor design and strange electrical gremlins. And I've had a 1996 Carrera for almost 20 years now that has been instrumental as a wrench-learning device. It's simple, bulletproof, and has a HUGE community of DIYers to lend assistance and confidence. Oil changes are a pain (12 qts, 2 filters, gotta remove the rear wheel, liner and side skirt), and there's one spark plug that is nearly impossible to get to, but other than that, most of the maintenance and repairs have been relatively easy and my mechanic has been charitable and gives me to use a lift and plenty of assistance when I need it.

I know my limits and always have a reliable daily driver to use to actually get me anywhere. My only experience with anything Italian is a 2017 Alfa Giulia that I had for a couple of years as a daily driver. I loved it, but getting it worked on was difficult to say the least. I'm reluctant to touch anything that's newer than early-2000s as I learned after owning several BMWs that I don't like messing with computer stuff.


The car I loved to hate. But I still have visitation rights at my mechanic's!


The silver torpedo. THANKS! I'm still thinking it's China Blue. What say you??? Also, it seems that single stage touch up is a little difficult to get. Still looking for a source for that.

The horn isn't getting any power, unless someone in its history tried to connect it to the headlight circuit.
Nothing wrong with premix, but it is nice to just buy gas normal-like.

Remove the carb airbox cover and take a pic.
Open the wiring junction box at the engine and take a pic.

I'm guessing your wiring is in good shape. Issues here are usually switches exposed to weather and the kill (originally green) wire.

OEM switches here:
https://www.scootermercato.com/Scooter-Parts/Switches/163140

Paint is 1k China blue.. and yeah, if you are gonna touch it up, for sure find somebody that shoots single stage and knows what they are doing or you can end up with an Ecee Homo in no time.

20 years ago (hell 5 years ago) people would have said , "It's just a P paint it whatever color ya want." Accordingly, OG paint bikes are getting harder and harder to find. I'd just clean up those rust spots and put some Owatrol on them to prevent further damage.

That said: your bike - your rules!

nice bike and story

looks like cowls and fender got a respray or replaced and resprayed at some point. still, close enough and I'd not fuss over that.

Good eye.

I love your 993. I had a 964 C4 Cabrio. Is yours the varioram or non varioram? Looks to me that your 993 has some S specs although those wheels are slightly different. Is the Blue car a 7R?, I think it is, they move. I had the S3 on a similar color Sepang Blue, I love blue. You need to tell me more, you and I have the sports car hobby. Do you do any road courses? I participate every single month on time attack with my son.

Tucson is still lovely although way too much traffic and many people moving from California. Lots of comercial and industrial growth in the last 15-20 years and lots of people moving in.

Absolutely win win! Story same cool as the Vespa.
Handlebar cover too.

*Forgot to add, remove the battery holder and take a pic there too.
You have the fuse holder and regulator there, looks like.
It's possible someone did an ac conversion. With a pic it will be obvious.

Thanks a lot for all the help so far and the link. I'm assembling a laundry list of parts to order which seems to keep growing and growing.

After brushing away a few spiders, I was able to get some pics for you:








That wire is looking pretty ratty.


Thanks for the confirmation on the color. Ecce homo lolol! The paints we have available to us in California aren't the most desirable. I'm gonna have to do some research. Maybe a trip to Tijuana would yield better results!

And yeah, I'd like to keep as much of the original paint as I can. I don't even mind the dings and scratches so much. Thanks. And yeah, the cowls definitely got resprayed. Lots of orange peel. Wasn't sure about the fender, but good to know that it's been resprayed too as I won't feel guilty if I try to paint it and clean it up. There's also a spot on the upper left front of the leg shield that has apparently been touched up, but it matches pretty well. Right now all these things are "good enough." Thanks! And good catch re: the handlebar cover. I didn't even notice that it was brighter. Definitely shows more in the pics. 964s are great! I remember when they were the red-headed step-911, but now that completely reversed and they're one of the most desirable models. If they're good enough for Singer...

I don't take the cars to the track. I've been saying for years that I should, but I haven't made it a priority. I used to drive Mulholland and the canyons when I was younger, but not so much anymore. My son is turning 15 in a few months. I should probably think about doing some DEs with him.

As far as the 993, it's a 1996 Carrera, so first year of Varioram and OBDII. The brakes are Turbo brakes and the wheels are MY02 996 wheels. I've done a few things to it over the years and I love it (mostly suspension tuning, interior stuff and refreshed the top end/lightweight flywheel RS clutch, that type of stuff, but nothing big in the engine). It's archaic to drive after coming out of a modern car, but it's still fun. It's set up pretty aggressively, so it can be a handful if you want it to be.

The blue car is a 2019 Golf R. According to the VW dudes, it's a MK7.5 as there was a slight facelift and a few other changes mid-cycle. It's served daily duties for a few years now and it's fun. Much more computer-y and obviously less analog than the 993, but I needed that after trying to daily the 993 in Los Angeles for 6 months after getting rid of my Alfa. I think the Golf R and the S3 are pretty similar apart from the AWD system (mine has a meh Haldex system that at best can go 50/50 but can never go rear-bias).

And the last time I was in Tucson, there was so much new growth! Neither downtown nor the area surrounding the campus looked like I remember them. That being said, I still love it there.

Anyway, here's a little video that the PCA did with my car last year.

Gonzilla, I have gone scuba diving at Redondo Beach off of Vet's (Veterans Park) many times.

I just watched a video on the 1979 P200e earlier this morning and then spotted your thread. I just barely learned about the clutch-and-twist-gear-shift combo and the spare tire under the fender.

I have a 996. I missed the boat when the 964 and SC were affordable on the used market. I hesitated and waited too long.

Nice collection of cars! Obviously, I'm an air air cooled VW guy. I've never been a real car guy. Just keeping my old bus going has kept my hands full. I recently got back into Vespas after dreaming of having one for 30 years. I had one in high school. I only wanted one, but somehow ended up with 3. Now I feel compelled to fix them all and can't part with any of them.

You should be able to match the color fairly easily, but yeah, California.

Your scooter looks to be in very good hands. For the wiring; good wiring harnesses are available, but it's fairly easy to fix the typical places where it deteriorates. There is a green wire to the kill switch that often causes problems. The insulation is made of cheese…only on that wire.

That's pretty funny! Right down the street. Small world. I've never been diving, not even here! What's out there anyway? I've heard of a shipwreck somewhere in Palos Verdes, but not sure if it's on the shore or still in the water.

And yeah, bizarre shifting mechanics for sure. The 996 is the most undervalued 911 there is. I've always liked them. Some day I'd love to get a 996 4S, but I'm pretty sure my wife doesn't feel the same.

The air-cooled 911 market is so ridiculous. They were always the sports car that were attainable to pretty much anyone if you waited and got a 10 year old one (what I did). Cars and coffee events brought a bunch of speculator bros into the market and it got out of control. Wish it would return to normal. Thanks! And if you're able to keep the bus on the road, you're definitely a real car guy!. Strangely enough, my friend Wil who I got the P200 from had a 1972 bus while we were in college (maybe the Vespa-bus connection is more common than I think?). Sitting on top of the front wheels really is a strange experience. And more than once I almost had a heart attack when he'd pull into a parking space against a wall. Haha! And so it begins... again!

I've read through your quickly escalating thread. What a cool journey!

I always liked them. And (probably sacrilege) I also loved the 80s Japanese scooters. Almost bought a Honda 150 deluxe a few years back, but chickened out. I've also always secretly wanted a Norton Commando, but $$$, garage space and a sense of self-preservation have all stood in my way. I'm gonna start asking around the vintage German circles to see if anyone has a good source nearby. I appreciate that, and I guess we'll all find out together how good the hands are.

The insulation on that wire coming off of the voltage regulator was cheese-esque. Just waxy and crumbled if you looked at it. Thankfully these things don't seem to be made up of too many parts. Hopefully I'll be able to wrap my head around it with the help of the "search" button here.

I have the same color 1979 P200 that DMV calls a 1980, because that was the year of sale. I can't believe you got it for free, although mine was only $875 in 1985. Scooter Speed in Azusa is the closest scooter parts supplier to you, they have a great website, and they do repairs too. Scooter West and Scooter Mercato both excellent parts sources as well.

Okay, going through your pics.
Wiring in the junction box looks good!
You can feed a new green wire from the horncast to there in a few minutes with the tank out, but if it feels supple at the box and doesn't test for continuity with the case (ignition switch on run) you could maybe add a connector there and add a fresh wire to the cdi.

You have the double-yellow stator. Two yellows to the rectifier. Black to the ground circuit and rectifier. Purple to the ac headlight and high beam indicator. Everything else is off the battery circuit.

Get a battery to see what works. You might be lucky and the rectifier still charges the battery.
Wiring diagram here:
https://www.scooterhelp.com/electrics/wiring/VSX1T.USA.before.pdf

Someone cut off the battery cable, at the bottom of the fuse holder. Add a 16ga wire and a battery eyelet.
Check the fuse, and order a few of those (or replace it with a modern one) too.

You have the autolube carb and pump there. Maybe you could restore it later, when you do the replacing seals project.

Speaking of projects, I highly recommend doing projects that don't involve filling boxes and keeping you from riding it for long.
Too many project bikes in boxes or tubs out there.

Front brake/tire, front brake cable project.
New green wire pull, switches & fuel tap replacement*.
Smaller projects, where things go together.

Bellows from carb to frame is missing, unless you removed it.

*Easier to shelve the plastic lever for later/posterity and convert it:
https://www.scooterwest.com/vintage-vespa-p-series-euro-rod-kit-for-usa-type-eflever.html

cool story and a great looking bike that appears to be super solid and relatively unmolested.

running repairs and sensible upgrades will do you well.

whatever you do, resist the urge to take it all apart and paint it.

it's fine how it is, it doesn't need to be perfect. just ride it.

Redondo is considered muck diving as it's all sediment down there; there are no kelp. The water gets deep very quick. There are interesting sea creatures to see. I've seen hundreds of sand dollars, octopus, crab, lobster, sea hares, rays, sand dabs, mola mola (ocean sunfish), shrimp, eels, and during mating season it's cool to see the thousands of squid mating and later on all the baby squid.

PV has kelp so one can see garibaldi, horn sharks, and other kelp fish. During the pandemic I saw an 1990 E30 M3 go for $256,000. I could have bought one for $9k back in the days and I regret it. Pandemic pricing went crazy on used enthusiast/niche cars and even regular cars.

996 was the closest I could get to the analog feel before the more modern versions.

Now I'm looking to pick up a Vespa in the near future.

THANK YOU RAY!!!

I'm still assembling my laundry list of stuff to get: tires, battery, switches, etc... I'm going to hopefully be able to do a little more inspecting this weekend and start the project list. I also have to try to get it registered at some point, so I might move anything regarding that to the top of the list. I also should probably clear some more space in the garage to work on it!

And yeah I removed the torn bellows to get a little more room to see stuff. And the plastic lever is definitely a little wonky. I sort of like the clunky aesthetics of it more than the euro lever though. Thanks Greasy! I have no plans to make it a garage queen at all. I'd like to keep the original paint original. The only thing I'm considering cleaning up is the already-repainted fender that has been a little bashed up from transportation between ID & CA. I'll probably leave it for now, but we'll see what happens down the road. I see tons of dolphins every morning north of the peninsula. I saw an octopus once by the pier. Sometimes whales on the south side of the peninsula.

Yeah the pandemic made values on 80s-90s cars go nuts. E30 M3s are cool, but they're maybe $40k cool. To me anything more than that is insanity. It's not like they made 50 of them. They made almost 18,000 of them, 5000 of which came to the US. 996s are still great buys, and I like the 997.1 too.

Good luck in your Vespa search!

It's the little victories.

The sidestand seemed sort of... untrustworthy. So I decided that my first mod would be installing a centerstand. I bought the reinforced one from Scooterwest along with the hardware kit and got it the next day.

I soon discovered that while smaller, working on the little scooter is not as easy, straightforward and delicate as I thought it might be. I have the scooter up on jackstands (one at the rear frame and two underneath the floor). After removing the side stand and installing 98% of the centerstand I was faced with installing the spring. This was not fun, nor straightforward.

I decided I needed to drop the exhaust in order to gain some clearance for that little S-shaped spring clip that attaches to the frame. OK, remove the two bolts... wait a minute. The tire's in the way of the right-side bolt. Ugh. OK, whatever, take the tire off. Then I find that the tire/rim doesn't just come off without a bit of "influence." After finally wrestling it out I'm faced with where to put the clip. Makes sense to put it in the middle. However when I do, I have no leverage to pull the SOB spring on because the rear hub is in the way. OK, off to the left side it goes as at least the motor isn't in the way there. After wrestling (again) the spring on, all seems okay. I'm encouraging any centerstand experts to please tell me if something looks amiss.



Besides not being sure if the clip is okay off to the side instead of the middle (is it?), another thing I'm not sure about is if the little tension plates (scooterwest part #174880) are supposed to stand off the bottom of the frame like a little tent, or if it should be the other way around.



It also feels like something is slightly catching, preventing the stand from retracting the last 1/2" without a little nudge. It seems like it's coming from this area, but I couldn't tell.



I feel a little dumb that I didn't clean the hell out of the bottom before I did this, so I may take it all apart again and actually clean it at some point, but for now it's done.

Looks like there is a little leaking going on by the looks of the filthy exhaust.



And after some investigating, the wiring leaves a lot to be desired. Somebody who was in here clearly had an electrical tape sponsorship and that's driving my OCD to the brink of exhaustion. I'm contemplating a new harness, but I'm also intimidated by the thought of trying to fish it through the tiny passageways. I DID order a new "green wire" kit from Scooterwest, but I'm afraid that might not cut it.


ummmmmm


a better-focused picture would reveal the loss of insulation on the 5 o'clock green wire at 12 o'clock.


perhaps the smoke that my friend mentioned when he tried to honk the horn was coming from this melted horn connector?

ANYWAY...

I also got a new battery, trans oil, light/horn switch, kill switch and a few parts to replace the cruciform (which I'm leaving for now after reading the DIY instructions) on the way, along with the book "How to Restore Classic Large Frame Vespas" to hopefully continue getting me familiar with the how's and the why's of DIYing this thing. Never filled my own battery before, so that should be interesting.

Still need to consider tires/wheels (tubeless?), how to lube the cabling (or do I just do all new cables? Inners AND outers???), and whether or not to attempt the wiring harness myself.

Anyway that's it after the first week! Thanks for all your encouragement!!!

Great bike at a great price. Thanks for the boatload of pics, especially the center stand shots. I've been toying with buying one for my <cough> Stella </cough> because the PO removed it in favor of a side stand which I hate.

Might have to jump on that this spring.

Yeah, Vespas have their own quirks and frustrations for sure. Lots of fighting with little parts in confined spaces until it becomes second nature.

I found running a new wiring harness was not too bad, but that was on a bare frame. It's possible to do a partial disassembly which would make it a lot easier.

Great story and great find! P series are awesome scoots and i can't wait to follow along on your journey! have fun and ride the shit outta that thing!

Just replaced a bent centerstand on my Stella. The angled part of the tension plates points down. Not sure about your return spring. The Stella uses 2 return springs and the clips go in slots on the crossmember. I think later Ps are the same. I take it your scoot has no such slots?

Edit for clarity: When I say the angled part of the tension plates points down, I mean the opposite of a little tent. Also, when I say slots, I am referring to slotted holes in the cross member that make it obvious where the clips are supposed to go.

What a score. Beautiful bike. I love the "Go Fast Scooters, Anaheim, CA" license plate frame. Erik Larson's first shop after leaving Scooterville. They rebuilt and tuned by Rally 200 engine back in 1986 with all the best stuff available back then.

It wasn't a TERRIBLE job, it was just more work than I thought it was going to be to replace a kickstand. My original intent was to steal the one off of the zombie Stella that I had, but it (along with everything on that particular bike) was ridden-hard-and-put-away-wet garbage. I'm still in, at best, the 5th or 6th nature stage right now. We'll see if I can get any better.

As I keep moving on I keep teetering on the tear-down fence, which would push me into "new harness" territory. I definitely need to clear space in the garage to do it correctly, but I have an indefinite hiatus from work coming up, so may need something to keep me busy and out of trouble anyway. Thanks! That's the plan!!! THANKS! That is indeed the way I assembled them. Good to know. Here's a pic from underneath of the spring clip slots in the crossmember on this particular bike, just FYI.

Thanks! My friend had this in Anaheim Hills (hence the plate) and Costa Mesa from about 1992-2000, then he moved to Boise where it mostly sat in his shed according to him. I did ride it in Boise about 20 years ago, but seems like it was mostly a home to spiders since then. I'm not familiar with Larson, Scooterville nor Go Fast, but I'm sure I will be by the end of all of this!

I think you've got it. Interesting that the P only uses 1 return spring but has slots for 2, same as a PX or a Stella.

It's got slots for like 5! Maybe I should buy more springs and see what happens?

*cups hands over mouth*

DON'T TEAR IT DOWN!!!

seriously. I know you want to do [blank] and [blank] and [blank] and it
seems like a good idea. but you'll get it all apart, project creep with sink in, and you'll still have it in pieces all strewn about the garage come prime riding time.

or you'll decide to restore it, and maybe you'll have it back together a year or two later.

or, it'll be all apart and you'll order all the parts and half of them will show up and half will be wrong and the other half you never needed anyway. and the project will just drag on, and on, and on. you'll lose interest and try to sell it for what you have into it and get mad because nobody is buying it and you're sick of looking at it when you could be out riding.

don't let perfect be the enemy of done. make it run, make it safe, do the necessary repairs to make it reliable and then ride the absolute crap out.

buy another, real project bike if you really need something to scratch that itch and keep out of trouble.