Modern Vespa

They put my headlamp in the trim ring upsidedown, it is staying that way since that's the way it came. Hopefully no one will take points away from me if I ever get judged. Chrome cleaned alright, showing some age. Voodoo, the fender trim is aluminum on this one, it turns the rag black when polishing with mothers and simichrome.

Taking some time for a wipe down while the evaporust does its thing.

This shot made me aware that the poor thing behind the scoot needs some elbow grease too.

It's an interesting headlight and not too many will know this one; it's specific to the LF Sears Allstate's with VNB type headsets. While the bezel fits 115mm headset, the glass is only 105mm. SIEM had made these bezels and reduced the internal size to fit 105mm glass. my theory is they had a bunch of earlier glass left over and this it how they disposed of them. i could be wrong here. the bezel is not reproduced.

Im a relative newbie to modern Vespa's , however I noticed Robot release a video in the last few days on a 1960's Allstate. Apologies if posted before on here

?si=nAO3s8kHVgzITuMo

The more you know!

Interesting bit of 411.

my opinion aside on the restoration, the most valuable part of this video starts at 11:30.


professional work comes with a professional price-

Thanks everyone for the tips and video. As for the road this one will travel, it will be an unrestored survivor. I will polish it up the best that I can, get it mechanically sound so it can be ridden gently and enjoy it as garage art mostly.

I will keep you posted on the journey. I can say that this although is a common scoot, it is rare to find one that hasn't been fiddled with or thrashed.

Happy new year!

Scooter looks fantastic. I really like the weathered warmth of the paint. Also cool is keeping the oldie engine but making it faster. From my perspective, any scooter that can do a reliable 55 mph meets the functional requirements for going anywhere. Well done.

Your bike will hold more economical value than the restored one in that video. I would be happy that you have such a nice original bike.

I hate that part but yes, the cruise control is as designed.

100% agree. An honest survivor from the days when you could actually order something that cool from the Sears catalogue. I like shiny new paint, but on that bike, it would be a crime.

There's a friction clip next to the grip that can be easily removed once the throttle tube is pulled.

So that friction clip was the culprit that sent my unsuspecting buddy's vespa for a ghost ride over a wall. The way I heard was he got going pretty good in first, grabbed second and the wheel came up tossing him and over the retaining wall it went.

Maybe if I need to mess with the cables I will pull that since the carb spring seems to have plenty to bring the grip back.

While I clean this thing, that buddy seat, should I pop the staples and put some new foam in there or leave it?

It never came on this bike as it's on the tube .

Damn.
So can that be removed easily as well?

Personal choice, but I have three of those clips on the shelf, along with any return springs I find. The SI carb spring and brake springs are enough.

Sorry, I got your thread mixed up with another Allstate project, but the bike looks fantastic. I really like Allstates and VBB's.

Some glamour shots, had some old super blue paste wax laying around. Hand applied, no machine polish. What beautiful lines!

Lucky to have a break in the weather to do some work outside. Happy new year.

Initial tank clean with evaporust wasn't up to my standards, going to need to pull the petcock clean it properly.

Tanks can be cleaned out preserving the OG paint. Here is a Sears Allstate 104 (1954) I just did; it was in poor shape inside.


Your bike is so nice!

Wow, that thing is BEAUTIFUL

Thanks! I did evaporust but only for a couple of hours. I will do another run overnight, it just had some light surface rust.

There is a small ding on front right side of fender that someone with skill could push out, a minor floorboard bend to the right of the brake pedal. Very minor blems and very minor chrome pitting.

The paint on front suspension and wheels...I'm not going to touch anything except add new foam to the buddy seat and probably take the seat to the boot shop for stitch repair.

What an absolute beauty.

It's stunning to see one in this condition. All I can say is thank you.

Wow. That is a looker.

That is one nice old ride.

What was your recipe to bring it back to life ?
I can't get rid of rust residues sticking on the walls of my tank that I can wipe out with my finger, but obviously I need a solution more sustainable

Loved seeing your pictures and reading about your find. I just joined this forum and posted about my 1964 Sears Allstate rebuild. I am not sure how many miles were on the scooter because it came in pieces and I have pieces from more then one scooter. So my rebuild won't be a true Sears Allstate at the end. Still, I hope to have a nice running scooter as soon as I can get the gears meshing properly. Too cold to work on it at the moment. You can check out my post under the Projects area if interested.

Good luck with your project!

Won't let me post the video but she runs on high idol and the idol screw only has affect on the last 1/2 turn all in. I am going to play with the A/F mixture screw when it gets warmer out and I can get the cleaned tank installed.

You may have an air leak.

Or too short of a throttle cable.

Throttle cable is not modified and functional when looking at the operation at the carb.

I'm pretty sure that I can work the mixture screw and the idol will have more effect, have limited experience adjusting 2 stroke chainsaws and trimmer.

I'm pretty happy to hear it run. The horn sounds pretty cool too, I was surprised that it wasn't seized. 57 years is a long time to be asleep.

The rear seat pad, looks like it started life as 3" thick and is now ~ 2 1/2" thick. The vinyl is in good shape, do I carefully remove some staples and add a new cushion? Leave it in the simple solution but not much cushion left if my brother wants to take his grandkids for rides.

I want the scoot to look good and be original as possible. Any opinions?

yeah that's easy peasy, remove the staples, pad to your heart's desire, restaple, done.

+1. Find some firm upholstery foam and go to town...

Cleaned up the buddy seat. Didn't realize it has a slight taper (2 3/4"-4" if anyone wants to make perfect) until I tacked the back of the cover down. Much like many of my other projects, "is it better than I found it?", if yes then good to go. If no, try again or call in a pro. I am placing this in the good to go category. Someday it will spend time in the warm sunshine.

Check out the rack on this one! Almost a shame to cover it up

Looks great! Nice work all around.

Well, the adjustment screws aren't really affecting the high idol. I used fresh gaskets on the carb and carb base. Where do I start looking for air leaks.

The thing runs high idol with the mixture screw and idol turned all the way in.

Any tips on where to look next would be appreciated

Gonna have to make yourself a leak down tester. Search the site there's a bunch of ideas on how to make one on here.

So it behaves much better once the air cleaner is on it. I still haven't gotten it to calm down and settle into a consistent idol. I did however lay a couple of patches thinking it may be down low enough.

I thought 1/4 turn on the mixture screw at a time and then dial in idol.

It sometimes hangs after a rev. Maybe I need to adjust the cable for a bit more slack.

Update - I investigated the carb slide to see how it was working, the slide was hanging open by 1/64"-1/16" and I could get it to close by gently pushing on the slide rod. It would get hung up at every throttle cycle. Took the carb back off and the spring pulls it right to fully closed.

The clutch seems stuck, it will not roll with it in gear and clutch pulled in. Any tricks for that?

The scoot went for its first spin in 57 years! What a crude and bouncy ride, I love it!

She runs and rides pretty well.

I can see these take a bit of finesse to be smooth I will need a bit of practice.

Had a duplicolor red can of spray paint that was a good match for touching up chips.

Thanks everyone for the assistance and now I need to find some decent places for stickers.

I actually prefer the moon bounce pogo fork honestly. May be due to lots of fake joints and a bad spine though. I have 2 Allstates, one with the og fork and one with an upgraded fork.