Modern Vespa

You guys all know of my rusty VB1 200 wideframe project 1958 VB1 200 Wideframe scuttle bucket But it just so happens that i'm now just beginning to build up another one! The scooter is also a 1958 VB1.

The backstory is that back in mid-2022 i was taking to a friend and asked him if he had any wideframe parts for sale. He did not, but the scooter shop that he worked at had recently been contacted by a lady looking to get rid of an old vespa scooter. The scooter was in poor enough shape that the shop had absolutely zero desire for it, but my friend gave me the lady's contact info.

Turned out the scooter was located about 4.5 hours away. Luckily i got a free ride from my friend who was driving out to that area, so $0 of fuel was spent retrieving it.

The backstory is that the lady and her husband bought a property with a house on it. There were LOTS of overgrown blackberries and briars on their property, and during their cleanup, they came across a scooter hiding in the said briars. They dragged it out with a chain behind their pickup truck (they thought it was a old washing machine at first), tossed it on their scrap metal trailer, drove over to the local dump, and the excavator clawed it off their trailer. They then had second thoughts and decided that they should keep it and find a home for it. So the excavator claw picked the scooter back up again (for the second time) and dropped it back onto their trailer.

The lady happily sold me the scooter for $200. It's now been sitting in my shop for about 3 years now, just waiting for me to figure out a direction i want to go with it. Now that i got a plan, i'm going for it!

As for a project name, i figure that since at one point it was painted blue, and that it was pulled from the briars, that Briar Blue would be a great project name.

Love it!

The main reason i bought the scooter was because i needed both the seat and the fuel tank. Unfortunately the fuel tank was rusted out.

that is rough but with potential.

My initial plan was to see if i could get the original wideframe engine to turn over. Unfortunately the piston was beyond solidly locked up in the cylinder.

My second plan was to install a low mile 2005 PX150 motor (including the E start and oil injection). After coming to the hard reality check that a kitted 150 wouldn't be a good fit for the type of riding that i do, i made the decision to use a P200 engine instead. I knew i had another set of empty 200 cases on my shelf that i could assemble, so the search in my shop came to a quick result of me finding an entirely rebuilt P200 engine on my shelf instead. I completely forgot that i had rebuilt and assembled it last summer…derp.

My plans for this wideframe are going to be a little different from my other VB1 200. This time i'm-
-keeping on 8" rims.
-Saigon SS 8" hydro disc brake (thanks GeekLion!!)
-hydro master cylinder at the handlebar.
-stock 200 engine.
-change the 200's transmission gears to suit the 8" wheels.
-8" tubeless SIP wheels (i'm not really a fan of the tubeless, but i need them for super accurate measurements when aligning the engine up in the frame in correlation with the front fork).
-hoping to keep the oil injection?
-12VDC ignition
-bright LED headlight
-new shocks front and rear (thanks for the rear SIP shock Rob!).

The first thing to do was clean, clean, clean. And Vader clean i got it! I spent quite a while cleaning the scooter at every angle. Purple Power and a pressure washer got it clean enough to eat off of. The chickens were also inquisitive of the new addition.

This is the first time i've stripped down a wideframe engine. The Sticky manual helped quite a bit. It probably took less than an hour to have it disassembled into little bits. All the gears looked immaculate. Even the cruciform looked in really great shape. The only bad thing was the piston was corroded tightly inside the cylinder bore. I had it soaking in penetrating oil for the past 8 months, but it did doodly squat for loosening it.

This was pretty much the point when i decided to not use the wideframe engine. The type of roads that i commute on are more conducive to a stock P200 power. I added up all the parts that it would take to build up a wideframe to be similar to a P200, and parts along added up to around $5500+. After realizing that i didn't want to spend that kind of $$$$ on a not so rare or desirable model (that was also had a severly damaged body), i decided that a P largeframe engine would be the power plant of choice.

The wideframe engine is an interesting design and quite clever! I definitely appreciated the opportunity to finally take one apart and reassemble it. I was VERY careful during the disassembly to not strip, snap, or break any of the fasteners, but it wasn't easy. I just made sure to use heat and oil whenever it was necessary.

It took some additional work to fit the Saigon Scooter Center 8" VBB disc brake on the VB1 fork. https://saigonscootercentre.com/product/vespa/wheels-brakes-and-tubes/premium-ssc-billet-6061-cnc-machined-ally-hydraulic-front-disc-brake-conversion-anti-dive-version-2/ As plug n play at SSC would like you to believe, believe you me it's not…one bit. A big thanks to GeekLion for hooking me up with his. I stopped by his house to pick it up on my way down to Sonora Mexico last month. Disappointedly, i had very little time to hang out and chat. I still had another 15 hours of driving ahead of me at the time.

I have no idea just how well this little brake rotor will work, but it should be more efficient than the drum brake? I am looking forward to taking advantage of the anti-dive design when braking.

I am excited to see how the disc brake setup works.
The wireframe engine is a lot of fun turned up, the cccoras cylinders are pretty badass even with a three speed.

I wanted an engine that could have a reliable top speed of a true 70+ mph and to be able to hold the throttle open indefinitely for an entire tank of gas while riding down the highway. That pretty much narrowed it down to me as a stock P200. I did look at the Corsa kits, but if i did that i also couldn't look past the 4 speed kits, pinasco cases, fancy clutches, fancy carbs, fancy crankshafts, fancy exhaust, ect, ect, ect. It was kind of an all or nothing for me. If i lived in a city or something, then this might be a completely different story. But living out in the country, the highway is the most direct route to get to the big city that's 25 miles away.

I went down the rabbit hole again and bought the SIP PX to wideframe engine adapter…knowing that it is designed incorrectly to center (or even fit) a P/PX engine without cutting it all apart and a decent about of grinding and welding. What it does do though is that it makes a decent jig to locate the PX engine until you can weld it all back together to where it needs to be. And since the bracket is made out of stainless, you either have to TIG weld it or used a tri-mix gas and a spool gun. I don't think the drive rollers most all MIG welders are able to feed the stainless wire all the way down through the whip and nozzle.

Originally i wanted to use a PX150 engine since it would be much easier to physically fit it in the wideframe. Once that plan went out the window, then it took some additional cutting and pounding to be able to fit the larger diameter 200 cylinder and head.

Great project. What would be pretty ambitious for most of us seems like your regular Sunday afternoon!

Why did you need to cut the SIP bracket? Was it for a different model?
Or maybe just not Grade 1?

Great project. I don't know who else would take this kind of project on. Attention to detail, as always, exceptional.

Completely agree with the endless wot of a stock 200 engine but any bone stock I have ever ridden, eventually do 62mph on the flat. Can get near to 75mph down a massive hill with a following hurricane. But lucky if they manage 50mph up a steep hill. Into headwind is comedy.

These days there are so many way faster and just as reliable alternatives. Around London keeping up with traffic is essential to survival.

Dude - we're not worthy! Awesome project and way beyond mosts skill set. Fun to watch though, so thanks for posting what you're doing.

Thanks for that.
Só happy to read this.
Most everywhere I see easy 65+ even 70 mentioned
Seems trivial that, 60-62 versus 65+ but it is a wórld of difference!

Me being a biggish bloke in nearly always windy mountainous country my reality was ... as you write; more like comedy which left me a bit frustrated.
As it is nor revvy either, 3rd would see me up the hills but not at anything near speeds mentioned all over the web.
Could not find anything wrong with the engine nor jetting though so

Totally subscribed, you are doing perfectly what I did crudely to a VB1. I like that you fiddled it to get the P200 to fit in there.

What are your plans to fit stock carb in there? May need more frame cutting I think. Or you could consider a side draft under the seat w/ a custom intake manifold I know you are capable of making.

Conditions need to be correct to reach 65+mph. Hills and headwinds will easily knock it back 5~10mph. A 36T 4th gear helps quite a bit. So does weighing under 160lbs. If there's no headwind on a flat i can reach 72+. I usually try to cruise at 55mph because i get much better fuel economy than at 60.

Yes, my plan is to somehow fit the stock 24/24 carb…along with the oil injection. It will most definitely require a bunch of frame surgery to get it to fit. I might even have to notch the fuel tank as well? I'll cross that road when i get there. Since i already stuffed a P200 engine in my other VB1, i thought this second time would be easier…it's not.

The SIP bracket locates the engine too far off center to the right. 12mm too far in my frame to be exact (close to 1/2"). I'm not even sure my side cowl would close if my engine was located 12mm to the right!

Crazy good fab skills on display here. Particularly love that centering set up.

I can't believe how good the frame was considering the damn thing was dragged out of a briar and then clawed on and off a trailer. What a find, what a story, what a reclamation.

Indeed, we are not worthy.

Looking forward to adding you to the 60/8's club!

Awesome work WD! I'm happy to see this project moving along. Well thought out and great fab work as always.

The frame was a whole lot worse. I kicked, stomped, and hammered the majority of it back out. The right side cowl was forcefully torn from the body. It ripped most all of the mounting brackets right off of the cowl. When i get further along with the build i'll break out the hammer and dolly to get things a bit more presentable. What kills me the most is, that i think the scooter's body was in pretty good nick right before the briar extraction and the excavator. Ugh. Well at least the people had a change of heart and searched out to find a home for it! They happened to be toyota land cruiser fans, so they knew how difficult it can be to procure vintage parts, and that's the absolute only reason they didn't scrap it out.

Oh, and yes. I do have an oregon title for this scooter. I just barely squeaked through the vermont registration before it got shut down!

The original VB1 aluminum upper rear shock mount bracket is located in the completely wrong spot. It located the shock spring right against the carb box. It also puts a strain on the shock's rod because it would be at an angle. I decided to fabricate my own upper shock mount. I had some extra 316 alloy stainless steel in my shop. I had .120" wall 1"x3" (1/8" thick) and a length of .180" 3"x3" square tube (3/16" thick). I cut a side off of the square tube so that left me with a piece of 1"x2" angle. After a bunch of drilling and cutting i came up with a working model. I removed the coil spring from the shock and cycled the suspension multiple times to make sure that there was going to be zero binding on the shock's shaft.

As simple as the bracket looks, make no doubt that i spent a good 3 hours of just holding random scraps of wood or metal in the general area of the frame in order to see if i could come up with a bracket idea. Once epiphany was reached then it was about another 3 hours of measuring, cutting, and drilling (note: stainless steel is not easy to cut, drill, grind, or sand). Another 1 hour was spent eyeballing the angles. The welding took a little less than 1 minute.

The result? An upper shock bracket that won't ever rust and aligns the shock up correctly with the P engine.

More pics

Flippin amazing man. I'm in awe - seriously!

That is some sexy fabrication!

This is how much i had to section out the frame so that the carb box top would fit when the suspension is at full compression. I'm planning on boxing the area back in with sheetmetal. No doubt the fuel tank will require clearancing. I think it's going to be fairly time consuming to sort this whole area out.

I had a brazilian market VB1 in almost the same tone of blue. I also had the idea of putting a PX200 engine like you, but sold it before doing it.

Looking forward to seeing your project.

Tricky repair with all the curves and angles. Looking forward to seeing how you shape the metal.

You and be both!

You might use the part you cut out as a template (if it's salvageable), and adjust dimensions as needed.

welp, it's not pretty, but it is all boxed back in. It took a while, but i did figure out a technique that worked fairly well for me.

I plan to get fresh air to the carb from inside the frame. A 2" holesaw did the trick.

Tasty work you got going on there Professor! Love how you're really getting after it.

I got the air intake finished this afternoon. It took quite a bit of time of cycling the suspension from full extension to full compression in order to get the measurements and clearances i needed. I had the engine in and out of the frame about 10 times today as well.

The welding was fairly uneventful…in a good way. Luckily everything lined up spot on. Cycling the suspension shows that the trimmed down rubber bellows works perfectly. I'd say this came out successful.

Pics of the accordion air bellows at full extension and compression.

The next steps are to sort out choke cable, throttle cable, fuel line, and oil tank line routing. I'm thinking the oil tank reservoir will have to be located inside the left side cowl?