Modern Vespa

I experienced an almost fatal accident about 10 years ago.
I am not afraid to ride, I'm afraid of being hit again.
I parked the scooter I was hit on in my storage bin.
I also abandon riding my other two scooters.
They have all just sat, waiting to be ridden again.
At 80 years of age and with age related infirmities, it might never happen.
I would like to get them in condition for my grandkids to ride or to sell them.
Is there a procedure to revive them that a Forum Member will recommend?

I had a bike sit for 8 years un-used. I also rehabed a friend's bike that had sat for 26 years. Here is what I did to get them back on the road again.

1) Do not attempt to start it before doing many other things first.
2) Drain the fuel tank, remove the tank completely is possible. Put a few liters of new fuel in the tank, and shake the tank vigorously. Drain it again. If you can drain it with the petcock removed, all the better. Remove the petcock and clean it very well. Perhaps even replace it (the rubber seal on it will decay and leak).
3) Remove the carb, disassembly it and clean it very very well. Get a carb cleaning kit.
4) New battery
5) Inspect all rubber on the bike (tires, intake manifold, hoses, etc) for cracks. Replace if needed.
6) Inspect your brake calipers and pads/shoes. The cylinders (master and slave) may have seized up or developed leaks. Replace the brake fluid at the very least.
7) Wash the bike very well (especially the engine) - probably this should be your first step so that less chance of dirt while you are working on the bike.
8) If there is a fuel filter, change it.
9) Change the oil (engine and gear oils)
10) Change the air filter

Thoroughly for sure, but a long list.

You say you have 3 scooters.
One of them is a Scarabeo 500, it seems, what are the other two?
Do they have a carb or electronic injection?

Damaged: 2006 Scarabeo 500 Heavy, Silver.
Twin: 2006 Scarabeo 500 Heavy, Silver.
Favorite: 2005 Scarabeo 500 Heavy, Tan.

I assume, electronic but school me as what to look for so I can answer you.

all three of your bikes are fuel injected, no carb. So you will need to clean the injectors.

https://bikez.com/motorcycles/aprilia_scarabeo_500_gt_abs_2006.php

This is what they look like however all of them have the Panniers / Bags.

Any suggestions on how to clean the Injectors or must it be done professionally?

You have 3 Scarabeo's 500?
That is amazing.
I expect they are very rare in the US. Never seen one over here.

What do you mean with "damaged" and "twin"?

Do you have a good mechanic not too far away?
If you have I would go there and have the complete fuel system cleaned.
If not, then I hope people here can give you good advice on how to do that yourselve.

My list is similar. Just went through this after near 4 year storage on my GTS.

Drain tank and put in fresh gas.
Charge battery (was ready to replace but it still worked).
Change oil and filter.
Change hub oil (still looked fine).
Change coolant.
Get code reader to check what turned out to be O2 sensor code.
Check and air up tires.
Clean up and look for any leaks, cracks, flaws.
Test ride.
Ride like normal.

Still to do - change brake fluid.

Fortunately nothing to major to refresh but I can see an extra 6 years taking its toll on rubber parts and corrosion.

Good luck getting them back on the road. Might be a fun project for those kids to upgrade skills.

Damaged in the accident. Hit from the rear. Ran fine for my cousin who retrieved it after the accident. Lots of plastic damage, however. I bought two, twins, as I had plans of riding the Pan-Am Highway from Prudhoe Bay to Ushuaia Argentina. I was just southwest of Chicago Illinois, on my way to Prudhoe Bay, when the accident occurred. I had two identical 500's so my sons could send me parts as needed when there was a problem. The problem however was dad. Fractured skull punctured and collapsed lung, four broken ribs, bruised kidney and both leg bones broken. Thank GOD for the EMT's who rescued me. When I got out of the ICU, I was sent to a GREAT Nursing Home to recover. Many Nursing Homes have poor reputations however this one was wonderful. It was called The Lexington, in Orland Park, Illinois. That however is history and so was my Pan-Am ride. By the way, I was wearing a 3/4 helmet and had a bright orange vest on. I went to thank the EMT's that saved me but, they spent most of our visit apologizing for the way they needed to handle my leg. While I do not remember it, I must have passed out several times as they tried to get me out of the scooter and on to the gurney. By the way, with a punctured collapsed lung, it's difficult to breath and very scary. The insurance ran out after 60 days in the Nursing Home and they flew me home to Clearwater. I did however learn to walk again with the help of and "anti" gravity machine. It supports you as you try to walk only allowing you to put just the amount of weight on your leg as the pain will allow. Thank you JESUS for your endless mercy.

That is an incredibly scary story. I'm glad to see you posting about scooter repairs after it (albeit 10 years later). I recently had a good friend endure a similarly life-altering accident that now 8 months later he is approaching normalcy, and he'll never be the same. But he's alive, and that was the one thing everyone was hoping for at the time.

I haven't posted here forever and am just getting back on the forum as I bring my LX 150 out of hibernation. So my response is more from some experience with vehicles sitting than specifically Vespas. Please be cautious if you choose to listen to any of it.

If it were me, I'd do a sanity check against the safety systems (brakes, steering, tires, etc), crank the engine with the plug wire removed a few times to slosh the oil around, then attempt to start it. The other recommendations are absolutely correct and should be followed...by the next owners. It is a ton of work for someone else's benefit, and believe me, you will not get that money back. The new owner will low-ball you based on sitting for a decade and they're not wrong to do so--it's a risk and a future challenge that should be reflected in the price. Disclose the history.

Again, indirectly related: I bought a 25 year old Land Rover Discovery that had sat for 12 years under a tree. We jumped it and I drove it home, on oval tires and 12 year old gas. California ethanol-ridden gas at that! I spent the next few months going through it and addressing the age-related issues and the stuff that was bad before it was parked. Once I had the tank down to roughly one half (the blessing here was that it was at about 3/4 full when parked), I filled it up, drove to the smog check station and got it passed. Sitting for 10 years is not a death sentence, it just requires some work to get the cobwebs out. I never did empty/clean the gas tank, but I did replace the fuel filter after I ran a few tanks through. It was fuel injected. I drove it for another 10k miles or so before I rammed it into a tree at 45mph after hitting a spot of black ice. The engine never died, and I eventually was able to drive it home. Sold it to someone who was going to fix it up again.

The assumption here of course and my opinion is that you move these on to someone with time and passion, and if that's your grandkids and they do it safely, great. Otherwise take the money you get from the sale and buy a round for the bar and celebrate life. Use the remaining cash to buy something fun for them...or you! Just another opinion to add to the chorus....

cantcomplain,

Thank you for your Post. I will take your advice to heart. So much of my scooter life has been invested in my GT-200 and my Scarabeo 500's that leaving them behind is painful. My guess is if I don't do it soon, they will be leaving me behind. My adventure from +-60 to 80 years old passed in the blink of an eye. I'm unsure where you are on your journey, but GOD bless you and keep you safe from those pesky trees.

Best regards,

Mike Lynch

Now I understand: the 2 from 2006 are twins, identical, and the 2005 is your favorite.

Another thing:
Did you really plan to make that journey on a scooter?
I did a bit of checking maps and it is a more than 22.000km long journey.
What an adventure.

Yes, I was going to attempt it.
My inspiration was a young man who did it on a two wheel bicycle. If I remember correctly, his Web Site is / was: The-Road-South.com

I have a few friends who have traveled this entire route. There is a actually a sub-group of people who compete to complete the journey in the shortest amount of time. Myself, i've only done the South American portion of the route - there is no road link between Panama and Colombia, so the journey is essentially split into Northern and Southern portions, where you have to use water or air transport to bridge the two. If you have a small vehicle (bike), you can pay to put it on a sailboat or maybe even in cargo on a plane. Otherwise you have to put it in a shipping container.

I've seen a wide spectrum of modes of traveling this route from AK to Argentina. A Citroen 2CV, a garden tractor, unicycle, family of 4 on bicycles, trekkers, etc. There is a website called Horizons HUBB which used to be the place where people on this journey congregated online. Most of the travelers were European, only a small number of Americans/Canadians.

The Darian Gap is of course the scariest part.
The Farc Rebels own it and are very jealous of "anyone" entering their realm.
I read an account of an adventurer crossing it on a "two-wheel drive" scooter.
It was a "rig" with chain driven front and rear wheels.
I have mentally lost track of the outcome or the Brand of scooter.
Great stuff however, on the deck of a sailboat would have worked for me.

Or even a canoe! We crossed the river Gambie via the "smuggler's route".

Where is that river located and what is the round "thing" floating in the forefront of the photo?

It's in the middle of The Gambia, and I assume the round thing is a buoy with some purpose or other...

We went with the VCdM to West Africa in 2019: Scootering West Africa

The Lions, were they alive or sedated or just not hungry?

That explains why the Google Maps could not calculate a route all the way from AK to Ushuaia.
The farest I got from AK was to Panama, and then further from Medellin to Ushuaia.
Sorry for my ingnorance, I am European and never been anyway near that Central American area.

But you actually did the South American portion? That is already a 10k km journey. It is impossible to make a journey that long in Europe.

I did something even worse, I did a loop travel around the entire coast of South America. For example, start in Sao Paolo, south to Ushuaia, then north to Ecuador, over to Colombia, into Venezuela, then south to Brasil and back to Sao Paolo. There is one place where the coastal loop route isn't quite possible, and that is the northeast coast from Venezuela to the 3 Guyanas and into Brasil - there are no roads. So I went from Venezuela to Manaus Brasil, then on a barge via the Amazon to Belem on the Brasil coast. It is possible to drive from Boa Vista Brasil to Guyana, then via boat to Fr Guyana and Suriname and boat again to Belem. But the road from Boa Vista to Guyana is a dirt road not easy to pass during rainy season.

Alive! Well fed, and well trained. Bribed with bits of meat on the ends of the "spears".

Well, it is possible, but you'll have to tolerate gravel/dirt roads.

https://transeurotrail.org/what-is-the-tet/

There's over 100 000 km adventure through Europe, up for grabs.

I'm afraid to attempt the "revival" as if it were successful, my fear of being hit may be overcome by the Scarabeo 500's agility. I'm so envious of the adventures being shared by other Forum Members. What a wonderful World!