Modern Vespa

Temperature rose to 13 degrees up here in Niagara region, Canada, so I washed all the brake dust off of my Vespa's wheels.
The one thing I didn't get to do before it got too cold last fall.
Lifted the dust cover and used a pail of hot water out in the garage.

Got a chance to test fit my Santa-supplied seat cover

AFC50 with a spraygun

"Today I added more comfort riding my Vespa in cooler weather with the purchase of a Torc T1 helmet"......

Unfortuantely, the item was out of stock but the Store offered a $20 discount on another helmet. So, I ordered a Torc T50 Del Mar Champ 3/4(that was already on sale) and a bronze mirrored bubble shield. All for under $100Cdn delivered!

The helmet came quick and fits nice and snug.
My wife commented that the helmet had so many "scratches" and I look like a "bug".
I reminded her I am riding a Vespa

Nice day yesterday. Went for a ride. Left it on on for the first time when I got home. Several hours later when my idiocy was discovered, it was plenty flat. Thankfully a few hours on a trickle (which didn't mate to the pigtail that was installed by the selling dealer back in 2023, so I got to remove the battery cover and use alligator clips instead) was enough to have it fire right up this morning.

I'm gonna go sip my mimosa now.

My new helmet reminded me of the Lego Spaceman

I went out in my garage and checked the trickle charger connected to the battery. Colder than a Well Diggers Behind here in Frostbite Falls Minnesota.

Bob Copeland

Today I installed the BIG foot around the end of the side stand to prevent sinking into soft ground or hot pavement.
I thought it might interfere with the crash bars underneath, but it doesn't.

(The jack in the background is just holding the front wheel off the floor for the winter.)

Minus 6 degrees C here today

Not in dire need, but just in case prices go up by the time I actually need them, bought a pair of fancy new tires for my GTS to be installed later this year.

Now let's see if I decide to tackle the job myself...

I pushed mine into a different spot in the garage. At an average daytime high under 20 F for the past couple of weeks, it's going outside even less than I am. Gotta make way for a new work bench… somehow I need to free up 10 feet of garage so I can commence building that.

Last week:
Replaced rear tire
Stripped the hub oil drain last week

Today:
procrastinate about painting some paint damage under the front (mostly stone chips).

Next week:
replace hub cover.

I brought one of my Vespa GTs home from North Carolina last week.

It was running poorly when I parked it in April. It wouldn't start when I got it home.

I took it to my mechanic who got it started, but we both noticed an awful knocking coming from the transmission.

I brought it home and took it apart, finding the variator destroyed, missing the horseshoe glides with the guiding posts broken and three rollers damaged.

I had all of the parts in my parts box and replaced them.

I have never seen a variator do that in many miles traveled.

The test ride showed it to be good again, so I will hang onto it and start riding it more.

Bill

Holy fuck that's savage. Only 5 rollers - is that the shadow of number 6 at the top of the pic?

Thanks for the gore pics 😀

There were six rollers.

Three were seriously damaged, the others had flat spots.

I believe that the cause was the loss of the horseshoe glides, allowing the two plates to beat each other up.

It was a new variator installed just a couple of thousand miles ago.

Bill

How does a variator "loose" the horseshoe guides? Or, perhaps they were never installed in the first place?

They do get hammered apart if their fit between the variator face and the ramp plate gets loose enough. I've seen it happen on scoots where the guides aren't replaced when the rollers are.

I outfitted my new 2024 GTS300 Supertech with lots of things to carry under seat when I travel, First aid kit, tire repair kit, battery operated tire pump with flashlight, rain jacket and pants (Florida this is really needed weather is sunny one minute and pouring the next), seat cover to keep seat dry, break lever lock, I added topcase, mesh seat strapdowns for bringing home things that don't fit in other storage areas. all in one utility tool and knife. Collapsible water bottle to hang off the hook. Probably forgetting a few things. Was fun to shop for all these things.

I installed my new Tucano Urbano Termoscud on the Vespa today. The new air valves are a dream compared to the old ones where half the air would come out before you got the valve closed!

After replacing Vanessa's variator and belt yesterday, I took a gentle ride around the neighborhood, topped by a quick jaunt onto US17 to maybe 65 mph.

All was good so I decided to ride her on the weekly, Sunday 7 Bridges Scooter Club ride that started nearly 20 miles south of my house.

I planned a route that would mostly keep me off of I-95, but once on the highway, I stayed on it for 15 miles, riding to near it's top speed.

It continued to run well to the meet up and the ride to Scramblers and a tasty omelette.

After riding home, this is what I did to the old scooter, its first wash in a year and a half.

It was the first time I had ridden a GT since riding her in North Carolina in April, when she started to break down.

It felt great to be riding her again.

Bill

Did this and filled it. Haven't put the wheel etc back on. Leaving it over night to double check there's no weeping like there previously was.

New dump pulley. bearings in it were dying.

and

belt. several cracks, here's a few. was also slightly under width spec at 20.8mm, min is 21.

Nice pics. How many miles on that belt? Did you push the interval?

Thanks

8,621 km of loving abuse.

I changed the back tire on Ghost, the 2023 Vespa GTS that Lostboater left for me.

I has to change the tire after running over a nail in New Mexico on the 2023 Cannonball.

A Michelin City Grip 2 was replaced with a Pirelli Angel 140 width that ran 8000 miles until now.

I went back to the City Grip 130 this time.

Bill

Cleaned the throttle body yesterday

Straightened the handlebars today. Needed to buy an 8mm socketed allen as it was too tight to use the well known bash the bars to straighten techniques.

I made washers that cover the head of the screw, they will by used on the exhaust.

Finally installed my Bitubo.

Yesterday, stuck in some 11.5g sliders. Looking like a poor choice but just playing.

Today, identified a cracked hose resulting in an air leak and high idle.

I plan on "playing" with a set of Dr Pulley Sliders (when the snow melts) to replace the OEM's.
Is there a Rule of Thumb on what weight to get for a stock set up? I think I read somewhere to go 10% less than the OEM roller weight...

umm ...

no great answer to your question. My only suggestion is to think like a scientist and take accurate reproducible measurements and remember the phone gps is rubbish for this purpose.

got it out on the roads, and it's been a minute since the last one (where i was a moron and didn't turn it off when i parked it, killing the bat'ry--thankfully an overnight on the trickler got it running again and the aforementioned seems to have held the charge through some pretty cold temps).

it's fun going back to the scoot after riding the Bonneville...it's far more chuckable lol.

Hence the rest-of-the-world advice to always turn off with the key, NOT the kill-switch.

In my case (2023 300 GTS), I usually turn it off by pushing the side stand out, because I have to get off the scooter to use the center stand, and I don't trust myself to be able to hold it upright while doing this.
So I kick out the side stand, it kills the motor, and then I turn off the ignition. (Except sometimes I forget)
I have never used the kill switch (that I can remember), anyway.

It's key-less, so there is no key dangling there to remind me to switch off by having to remove it.
Take a little training.

Every other time I turn it off at both.

New exhaust from SIP.

Replaced 11.5g sliders with 14g sliders. (Betting I'll end up using the 13)

Swapped intake hose for a stainless steel to make the throttle body less bouncy
GTS intake hose cracking (throttle body -> manifold) (Post 2720672)

installed the malossi force master 3
Malossi cylinder + camshaft + forcemaster for GTS 300 HPE (Post 2721305)

new air filter
new rollers and slides
topped up oil

valve adjust

wrapped my stainless steel intake hose

I did similar but to the "output" pipe....and obviously not on my Vespa