Modern Vespa

So i recently bought an 04 genuine Stella 2T. Zero complaints for my first week or so of ownership until yesterday when out for a ride i pulled up to a stop light and realized i couldn't find neutral. I was about 5 miles from home and decided to push on. As i headed back to home base things progressively got worse. Now not only could i not find neutral but it seemed as if my lower gears were no longer available. I would release the clutch in 1st gear and almost stall out if i wasn't already rolling. Its like all my gears were replaced with 3rd gear only. Plz help! i have no idea why this is happening and need to fix asap because the 2T is my only form of transportation at the moment.

tldr: Stella 2T cant find neutral and seems to be stuck in 3rd gear.

Check the shift cables and make sure they are taught first.

How much slack is there in the clutch lever at the headset? should only be a couple of mm.
Could simply be clutch cable adjustment.

What Friday said, sounds like one of your shift cables has snapped or come out.

Pop the selector box off
It sounds to me like your selector arm is either disengaged from its pivot point - the pin that holds it in sometimes works it way out

Or your rod has unwound from the cruciform.

None of these are unfixable with a little time and effort.... oh just remember tnat if it is the cruciform that has worked its way off the selector rod... its a left hand, not right hand thread

Good luck and let us know what it was

Thank you I will try all of the above and fingers crossed it's something simple! Does anyone have a pdf of any service manuals or diagrams from Genuine for the 04 Stella 2T? And If I do end up needing to replace anything I plan on trying to find performance/racing parts to get a little extra speed out of my scooter. Does anyone have any suggestions or know of a reasonably priced parts supplier that would have what I'm looking for??

https://www.49ccscoot.com/manuals/Stella-2T_Service_Station_Manual.pdf

Most of the performance sources are in Italy. Checkout avotecnica.com good prices on VMC products.

Moderators
If that isn't in tje wiki, its worth downloading and adding for future references and visitors!

Finally having a chance to open her up. These are some pics of inside the gear selector and of the cruciform. Tell me if anything looks out of the ordinary plz.[/img]

As o expected.
The selector rod has disengaged from the cruciform. and it also appears to have stripped the threads on the selector rod.


You need at least a new selector rod... I can't tell if the cricifom thread is also stripped. But I would imagine it is

You now need to split the engine to replace the cruciform and selector rod

Now the good news

Its a fairly straightforward task to split the engine and replace the components

Ok cool! Any suggestions for pulling the flywheel without any special tools?

A three legged puller is an option. But the proper tool is really inexpensive

So inexpensive I'd like to add, that it's not worth making one.

Checkout Vespa Motorsport, they have a selection. Just make sure to pick the right one:
https://www.scooterwest.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=puller

That's like the pandora's box- . . . .while you are in there. . .. .

Seals bearings etc.

May as well.

The biggest "while you're in there" item for a Stella is the crankshaft. As you may have seen, they are notoriously unreliable to begin with and are guarantied to fail if you kit the motor.

As you also may have seen, Lee Lux at "That Scooter Thing" and Tommy Chan at "Small Bore Corps" each have done a series of videos specific to splitting the cases on a Stella. Both well worth watching.

https://www.youtube.com/@ThatScooterThing/videos

https://www.youtube.com/@smallborecorps/videos

The LML manual is quite good and applies to Vespas as well. It shows the use of all the specialized tools, many of which are easy to find and way better than work arounds. Better than the Haynes manual, for sure.

The other good news is that the selector rod coming out didn't result in bad damage. Buy a lottery ticket, pull the whole thing apart and rebuild it.

Any progress update?

Or have you given up in disgust 😀