Modern Vespa

Hello!

I have a LX 50 2 stroke from 2013 in my posession. This bike has ran 2000km in total, so ithas barely run. It was parked by my father back in 2018 because there was no spark anymore.

Now my wife needed a ride and I tried to revive this scooter. After some basic maintenance I took care of the ignition problem. I replaced the CDI (that was not the issue) and after that the stator (the "ignition coil" in the stator was bad). After replacing both parts (stator and CDI, both OEM spares) the Vespa ran perfectly fine. It started basically after one turn of the starter, was agile, etc. Spark plug perfectly brown, no signes of overheating.

My wife and I made a little trip to the next city and back and parked the Vespa at my mother in law for some coffee. After some hours, we wanted to drive home, but the Vespa didn't start (cranked over, no spark). I measured the wires to the CDI and it seems, that the stator is shot again (open loop, pickup is OK).

As the ignition system basically contains only the spark plug, the CDI, the stator and the ignition switch, I am a bit confused where the problem may be, that the stator went bad again. Maybe someone has a hint for me...

Nobody any idea?

When you state the stator went bad - do you mean it's gone open circuit? In which case look for a bad solder joint, especially as it's relatively new and 'should' be good otherwise. Get that multimeter out!

If there's damage there - are the magnets in good condition? I've had magnets break apart, causing severe stator problems.

The magnets should be OK, the engine ran without a problem for 50kms. There is no visible damage to the rotor.

The old stator went open loop, I measured it directly at the stator. You cant repair the solders on the ignition stator coil, because it has an plastic case around it and is completely sealed off.

So far I have only measured the stator through the cable harness. To measure the stator directly, i would have to dismantle a good chunk of the scooter.

Does that cable harness come with the stator, or part of the main bike harness? If the latter, perhaps the problem lies with the harness and its connections, not the stator itself.

Yesterday I was at the garage and out of nowhere it started without problem. But it only ran for about 5s. Seems, that the problem lies somewhere else...

Sounds very much like an intermittency in the wiring - but whether within the new stator or the old wiring is not known. The odds are very much in favour of it being the old wiring though.

I really hope so