Modern Vespa

'58 VNA piaggio::: Strung up my scooter from a tree today. Filled up the cylinder with acetone and ATF. through the carb port. Seemed like the best thing to do since it is stuck at TDC. Leave it there for a few days. Hopefully that stuff will start draining out the top of the cylinder. Found the original Carburetor for it today. Didn't even know I had it. Going to need to find a kit for it. If anyone knows where I can find a seat hatch, lid or what ever you call it, let me know. A shop manual sure would be nice. I've worked on bikes before. But I'm new to these.

Strange fruit.

If it was a little higher it'd be a piñata! I think Scooter West has a parts book for it.

Thanks Rob I'll give them a try.
GickSpeed, I wasn't to sure about going with the original sky blue these came in till I saw the one you did. Nice job. Decided I will go with the sky blue after seeing yours. I doubt I'll do as good of job as you did. But that's OK. I'm the only one I'm trying to make happy here.

She's a beaut. There's no kits available for it as far as I know. It should piston ported. I've got the original VNA engine my 58 Allstate came with on a shelf and put an engine from a PX150 in instead. Those original motors are wicked slow.

http://www.cccorsa.it/

Check this out. Some of his stuff can be bought through Scooter Center.

This new book has lots of good stuff about your engine.

I can personally vouch for the high quality work GickSpeed does on wideframe engines.

Ray on here has a very nice original paint one. yes, those are absoutely beautiful bikes! It's a 50's robin egg blue.

except his is not a widebody.

Ahhh, his is a 98cc?

Well scrap the advice on the wideframe book. It just covers the 125 and 150 engines. Oops.

125cc. it's a large frame engine, but piston ported. in fact, the cases had changed a few times and you can see the evolution towards rotary valve.

That's a funky one, haven't seen that one yet.

Think I found a good shop manual. Printed in '66. This one seems to be the only copy available anywhere. At lest for right now. Coming from across the pond so it will that a few weeks to get here. Just hope they don't ship it FedEx. I'll probably wait till I have it in hand before going any farther.
I was going to get the Haynes. It covers years '59 to '78. Makes me wonder what did they change in '59 to make it different from '58?
Still no one has said anything about the seat hatch. Is that what you call it? I need the right key words to google. Course I need everything above it too. But right now need the hatch mostly. I can put a bicycle seat on it if I have to. I could use a good picture of one and I need to know how universal they are. Or what years and models will work on mine. I can make one if I have to, but it will look homemade.
PS: Just seen Poidog had sent me a link in my first post where can buy a parts list. Over looked that. I'm fixing to order that too. Thanks Poidog

One of the biggest things is the evolution of the large frame motor from piston ported to rotary valve.

There is nothing like a piston ported vespa.

Cool scoot and pic. Good luck with your project.

Thanks. I want to find out. I added some other bikes I own on the left. You can see I really don't have a need for speed. If I'm in a hurry I can jump on something else. Nearest town (pop. 543) is about a mile from me. Half of that is gravel. That would be about as far as I go. Or maybe just a ride in the country. Course that is if I can get it apart without tearing up much. If can't get it going I might consider a larger engine. Or, seems like everyone just about has one of these on a shelf. Might just find another one like I got.

Yes, I work on old Ford tractors a lots with the flat heads on them. Valves in the block. About the same deal. Lose a lot of power that way. But they are what they are.

The PP '65 Motovespa 150S case is cast for a carb.

nm

choke lever is attached to the seat; hold over from widebody. That is a pretty big difference between VNA and VNB/VBA/VBB. I guess you could "rig" something if you run a different style seat; put not cool.

Love the come along! In fact the whole picture is awesome. My VB1 widebody's has been sitting with ATF/acetone mixture in its cylinder for a few months now, except that i don't think it's going to loosen anything up ever.

Maybe keep your eyes out for a used PX or Stella engine? It might cost less to rebuild one of those engines than your VNA.