Modern Vespa

My LX 50 has had a bad run in with a car, hit the LH rear panel quite badly. Bent the steel, broke the plastic fairing, and broke the airbox from its tabs.

I tried to plastic weld the airbox tabs, but in the end I bought a replacement airbox. I was able to plastic weld the plastic fairing and it looks like new. But the dented metal is the most difficult of the jobs.

I thought I would share with folks how to fix these sorts of dents. Remove the pet carrier. Get a bottle jack that you can put horizontally inside where the pet carrier was so that the jack reinforces the frame supports. You should probably put some pieces of wood on the frame supports, and then put in the bottle jack. Tighten up the jack. If you don't do this step, the frame supports will bend and you will have to fix them also. Ok, next step is to get a deflated ball, an american football works quite well. Get an air compressor - the kind that have a digital read out of psi is best. And get a needle - the type used to inflate balls. Insert the needle into the ball. Jam the deflated ball between the frame support and the dented external side panel. Make sure the needle is in a direction/position so that when it is inflated it is free to move. Attach the compressor and slowly increase air in the ball. Do not go over 45 psi. The dent should pop out. Deflate the ball, move it to another area and repeat. You can try with smaller balls if the space is more restricted.

Here is what I started with and how it turned out with a few uses of a football.

That is amazing, thanks for sharing!