Modern Vespa

Got the rims and motor mount back from powdercoating.

Very nice.

waiting to see you again. Good job

Rosebud is standing on her own feet

Got the tires mounted and got things together for the first of many trial fits. The motor mount is perfect and it looks like I still have enough room for the tire to clear the rear bodywork. The 11in front rim clears the caliper on the 220mm disk as well.

Wow
WIsh I had your talent..

I checked the suspension travel through the full range of motor mount and rear shock travel and the rear tire clears the rear fender by about 4mm.

like it!!! will it touch when you put your weight on it?

I removed the spring from the shock to check the movement, so pictured is fully compressed with the shock bottomed out. There's lots of clearance at the normal ride height.

I hope the definition of "lots" means "Enough to pass a good-sized piece of gravel on a bumpy dirt road."

This project is amazing. I can't wait see your posting after the first ride.

I miss this thread too.

Yeah, me too. What a great project....

Me too!

It should get some lift time in the next few weeks

Work is taking up too much of my thinking to graft the missing and different parts from the GT into the LX harness so I'm going to route of shifting the wires around on GT harness to fit the LX.

The center section of the LX harness is about 6in longer than the GT. The 5 wires from the stator had to be extended to shift things down. The good news is that after all the tape is removed and the stator wires are extended, the battery leads are the right length and can be put in the right position to reach the LX battery.

Oh, and the radiator fan circuit is really simple, and in the wrong place so I just cut it off. Getting ready to start taping some of it back up.


LX harness laid out to create a pattern.

GT stator leads that need to come off the harness 6in further down.

The current mess that is the dissected GT harness.

Got the radiator mounted to the back and plumbed in. The wiring went in a while back, just need to finish up the turn signals and find a coil with a long enough or replaceable plug wire. Then the exhaust...

Thanks for the update on this cool, cool project.

So the radiator is on the back, behind you, right?

Fantastic project, looks amazing.

What happened to behind the legshield?

Forgive me for saying, but airflow is important for the radiator though, right? Surely having it behind the rider is less than optimal, will it have a fan to draw in air, or?

Maybe I'm just thinking along the lines of cars here and now understanding the importance (or lack of) of proper airflow to a scooters radiator.

Mounting it at the front was becoming a huge headache for the ducting and while it provides good intake the exhaust of the hot air is not that great. The final setup will have the radiator mounted inside the bodywork at the rear giving a nice low pressure exhaust path and plenty of area to draw air in around the engine.

The current mounting behind the rider is less than ideal but will be good enough to get the bike on the road. I also tend to ride tucked in most the time so air flow is not quite as bad as it may seem. I may put a fan on it as well, if needed.

Those black wheels look great !

Started the bike up this evening for the first time. All went well but found I needed to redo some plumbing on the cooling. Got that sorted out and now that there is fuel in the carb it fires right up.

Tomorrow morning will be the first ride.

project Patrick! Very unique and well done.

This needs video!

video of first start

sorry about the mess in the garage.

Niiiice!!

First Ride:

I took Rosebud out for a spin as well. It's seriously a kick in the pants. Of course, Patrick is using the kitted GT200 engine that I put together, so it damn well better.

Bike weighed in at 231......



R

a few issues to work out: need to fit the GT fuel pump, it was cutting out on Jess' at WOT up hill. Also need to replace all the onetime use nuts with nylocs and should probably put a cotter pin on the front axle nut.

Also need to get a tach to dial in the variator.

Nice!

Damn! Lean and muscular. That's what a scooter should be.

Nice work, Patrick!

I love this and am still kicking myself for selling 1 wrecked GT a few years back and passing on another last year.

If I was to do this again I would not bother picking up a GT for parts. I would use an electric fuel pump and put the malossi LC top end on the LX case. Would also need to change out some variator/clutch items but over all it would be much easier going that route.

So the real key to this conversion is the extended motor mount.

I thought about that too. wasn't sure if the crank would work without swapping. Why do you need to change cvt stuff(sans crank swap)? I was thinking just up gear the final drive. I guess Piaggio changed the gt stuff for some reason though. The gt gauge would be cool for the temp function.

The GT variator has a lower ramp than the LX and the clutch has cooling fins on it. There's also the idler in the middle of the case to stop the belt from bouncing around. You could probably dial in the LX variator without swapping too many parts.

One other change that would be needed to convert the LX is the Malossi CDI that removes the rev limiter. The 4V head can rev out to 10,000PRM while the 2V on the LX is limited to 8800.

Whoa! Malossi makes a liquid-cooled top end that fits the LX case? How did that escape me?

That would be just the thing to make my LX hotrod/tourer even more practicable.

EDIT: Are you talking about the 210cc kit that has been around forever? I didn't realize that would bolt up to the LX crankcase. I guess there are some stroke issues to be worked out, but that would probably be less difficult than the GT engine swap.

The GT and the LX use the same cases(LEADER). Patrick is suggesting putting the GT top end on LX engine and using an electric water pump.
Things to think about:
Will that work with out also swapping the crank?
The ignition system. Will the LX ignition curve work with the GT top end?
And Patrick brings up the cvt, which I would think needs to match the crank used. It sure would be interesting.

The ignition curve and the temp gauge are what kept me moving forward with the GT parts. After modifying the GT harness I found that the temp gauge would not be that hard to wire into an LX harness.

But before anyone goes running out to buy the Malossi head and cylinder:
1. The head and cylinder will fit on the engine just fine (as far as I know)
2. The engine with the new head will NOT fit in the LX frame without making a new motor mount.

I see now that the stroke is the same for both the LX and GT engines, so I would think the LX crank could still be used.

Wonder if the CDI can be swapped to get the GT ignition curve? Malossi CDI?

I figured there would be clearance problems with the LC head without changing the engine mounting a bit.

Wait a minute... what about the water pump? Will the GT water pump bolt up to the LX case, or would you have to go electric?