Modern Vespa

So as I noted over in today, I..., a Lambretta Riverside followed me home.

This bike has bounced through at least three people before me who picked it up dirt cheap, did nothing with it for a couple years, then sold it along for the same price they paid. I got it off a clubmate in trade for some Vespa parts a few months ago, but just got it into my workshop last night.

My plan is something along the lines of: This afternoon after work, I pulled the motor and tore into it. While trying to get the flywheel nut off, I broke the piston loose and the cylinder is actually just fine if someone is dying to run a cast iron 125; i.e. a masochist.

The piston, on the other hand, had half the skirt broken off and a crack that ran almost to the crown. I can only surmise what happened there, but I'm glad I wasn't riding it when it did.

After a near-mess of almost forgetting to drain the oil, I got into the chain case and other than being sludgey, it doesn't look terrible. What's interesting is that Something Really Bad happened to the clutch and kickstarter. It's all chewed up, but no shrapnel or shininess in the oil, so again, I can only guess what went on.

The crank was super-crusty, the flywheel was missing multiple fins, it was completely rotten points, and the flywheel nut was rusted solidly onto the crank, so I chose violence and just cut the flywheel off with an angle grinder. That was more work than I was expecting, but it's done now.

At that point, I decided I'd made enough progress for one day. I still need to triage the gearbox and decide what I might need to do with it, but I'll get there.

Then, it's onto the main project, which is prepping for paint.

I still need to get cowls and rear footboards, but the legshield and mudguard are, on initial inspection, completely dent and ding-free.

All-in-all, a great candidate for a resto-mod.

Very cool project!

It's really a great feeling when you find out they're not as chingered-up as you were afraid they were.

Yeah, I was expecting things to potentially be a lot worse. I'll know more once I get the mag housing off and the crank out, but as of right now, the cases look like they're going to work just fine.

Which is a good thing, because pricing out body panels, that's going to be about $500 all in if I can't find some used ones lying around cheap.

I'll get a chance to try out the rust removal recipes, too, on the shifter/clutch arm/etc.

Radical Riverside! Excited to see what becomes of this

I will follow the progress of your restoration with great interest, I have a Serveta which will receive the same treatment soon

I love it when another scoot shows up!

I like it! That'll be a fun project. How are the body panels? beat up? missing?

what's you're basic plan? More of a restoration or a resto-mod?

To be honest it's really in great condition, just surface rust, the panels are straight and everything is in original paint. It was missing the indicator switch (found it, got lucky because it's pretty rare), the flywheel and cylinder head cowlings (found them in original paint), and the headset cover was damaged but I had it repaired, it will just need a partial repaint.
The chassis will remain "stock", no big tank, no front disc … I already went crazy on other lambretta projects and once you put your finger in the gears, there is no limit.
For the engine I am not quite sure yet, but I want to keep it simple : RT195, 5 plates clutch, Keihin PWK28 (because it's easy to set up), 107x60 crank, 12v ignition, BGM exhaust … simple and effective. It will give around 15hp which is enough, and it's an evolutive configuration, you can squeeze more hp by switching to a reed valve intake and cutting a boost port.
I already had an Imola (great), a Quattrini M210 (fantastic), but those are expensive configurations, not sure I want to go down that road again.

Looking forward to more videos on the Lammy chandlerman !

I love the Quattrini M210 on my Series 3. It's the absolute max amount of power where the front wheel juuuust starts to lift when it hits the pipe in first, but you don't have to ride it like you're going to get thrown off the back. I rode it this weekend while we did sixty miles over the weekend on fast backroads in rolling hills and it was just perfect for that job. I only had to downshift out of fourth a couple times, usually because we hit the uphill too slow to really be in the power band.

I'm a big PWK fan. I have a PWK-34 on the Series 3 and it took more than a little fiddling to get it dialed in, but now that it's there, it's fantastic. I had to fabricate a custom manifold for the reed block to get the diameter, but it added measurable power versus the PWK-28. I'd have to go back and check the dyno's, but it was a few HP.

I always start out saying, "This one, I'm not going to go crazy on..." But eventually, I always go crazy. Also, upgrades like the front disc or a top quality headlight are just flat-out more pleasant to ride with than a drum brake or a BA-25 bulb. The fact that they're also safer is just a side benefit.

Get your own build thread going. It's not only a great reference for the rest of the community, it'll also attract good advice and provide a work log to let you keep track of all the things that you forget about later.

That's a great project.

Yes I will as soon as I start working on it !

How does Oil feel about this new stablemate? If you find other projects inexplicably vandalized, abused, or missing parts… you know who to blame.

Multiple Lambrettas? You sir are a brave man.

Seriously, cool score. Good on ya.

LOL! Oi(l)! is taking it all in stride. I took it down to Alabama because I had complete confidence in it, plus it has goodies like a front disc that really do make a difference.

It should be more concerned about the GL making a comeback and taking its place. It's still the undisputed champion for touring, but I just took the GL to a lunch meeting and as I get the carb dialed in, it's getting pretty close, and certainly as a quick little around town bike.

So no mechanical progress to report, but I have ordered a pile of parts to keep the project moving, in particular the missing body panels.

And keepin' it in the family, the side panels are coming from from none other than our very own GeekLion, by way of a mutual friend who knew GL was holding.

Right on! That's the snazz .

I love to hear stuff like this! Keeping it in the family - the NSM family

All in the family! I'm super stoked to be contributing to this! It's good to have friends

Absolutely!

I asked Casa if he can pull the floorboards off my order since it's one giant backorder, so I'll let you know what comes of that, so you'll probably be able to claim contribution to the entire back half of the scoot .

Parts are trickling in...side panels from our very own GeekLion, with more bits on the way from his Dragon Hoard along with a box from Casa Lambretta.

Once that arrives, it'll be time to get serious about paint.

Lookin good Cman!

Dig it.

Yesterday, I decided to start tackling the prep work for the Riverside.

First off, I mixed up a batch of the rust remover that QA found on Beyond Ballistics' YouTube channel.

1 liter (4 1/4 cups) water
100g citric acid powder
63g Baking Soda (Sodium Bicarbonate)
Dish Soap as an emulsifier

I let things soak about 18 hours total, and the results were pretty impressive. I realized after a few hours that everything was still pretty well coated in PBBlaster, which I suspected was inhibiting rust removal, so I washed everything off and then let it all soak overnight.

The rear hub nut locking ring was the star of the show, so naturally I didn't have a good "before" picture. It looks almost new now, though.

The shift arm was a complete rusted mess before, and now while it's not perfect, I could probably let it go longer and it would mostly finish the job.

The main takeaways I have from this are:
1) de-grease everything beforehand for best effect
2) don't skip mechanical (wire brush/wheel) rust removal prior to soaking. Soaking will still work, but will take longer and you'll still probably wind up brushing the parts, you'll just be doing it mid-process.

So based on my initial success, I decided to go ahead and try the brake ring and center splines of the rear hub.

And this is where I realized something. The hard way.

The existing mixture didn't fill the bowl enough to cover the hub, so I decided to mix another liter to more fully fill my bowl by extending the existing mix. I added another liter of water, another 100g of citric acid, and about half the baking soda.

When you combine the baking soda with the citric acid, you get a lot of bubbles as they mix. It dissipates pretty quickly, so not a big deal. Unless you're adding it into existing mixture that already has dish soap in it, at which point you get your grade school chemistry volcano experiment on steroids.

Anyway...once I got everything cleaned up, I started from scratch, mixed up two more liters of rust remover, and now have the rear hub and collar soaking in them.

I had to re-upload the "before" picture, so it's at the bottom of the pic's. Sorry.

More pictures to follow after they finish.

Glad to see some progress here, and the rust solution being put to work. Results look good! I'm looking forward to testing this on a painted part, and hopefully saving the paint as well

I'm going to start the gas tank this afternoon. I'll leave the paint on the outside and test that for you.

yeah man! Post up the results

Given that the old 60's paint just laughs at chemical strippers, I think it'll be just fine.

Still. better to know than guess if it's the difference between keeping and losing paint you want to keep

Totally! It will probabyly just fine, but I would like to know for sure before submerging my whole GL frame in a vat of science liquid. Might come out looking like the Joker

Ha - we're so techie doing science and stuff....

And you've gotta love old lead based paint. It sure stands up to all kinds of harshness.

Science liquid…. Makes all the ladies swoon. 😂

Its proven. Trust the science!

60% of the time, everytime.

What works better and faster is baking soda, water, and a small 12v battery charger. You shouldn't put any aluminum in there though because it will eventually eat it up. And yes, clean the grease and oil off of everything first (such as using purple powder)! Afterwards spray the steel part down with Ospho and the steel parts will come back more bare than a birthday suit.

Electrolosis for the win! Mad Science! Mad I say!

I wonder if electrolysis would remove the paint?

As best I recall, it weakens the paint's adhesion, though don't know for sure.

I've done a LOT of electrolysis rust removal. This is a lot easier and (I think) faster, though not quite as effective.

I could see starting with chemical, then finishing with electrolysis, though.

yes it will

Quick rust removal update...this was the gas tank after a little over 12 hours soaking.

You can see the rust line pretty clearly and the paint seems undisturbed, even along the line where it's chipped off. I'll poke at it a little bit and assess, but I think this is probably a viable option for you, GL. You're going to be surprised how much material you're going to need, though. Think kilograms of Citric acid and soda.