Modern Vespa

I have almost completed the disassembly of the rally (nicknamed Walter) and except for a few stuck pieces and a couple I can't figure how to remove, it's ready to go to the bodyshop/painter. I have to say, now that it's apart and in bags, I'm scared I won't be able to get it back together

While it's there, I'm going to replace the seals and the cruciform if necessary and buy the bits I'll need to put it back together. When I bought it there was no installed battery, but I'm unclear on if it had been converted to run without one, or whether it just didn't have one right now. I'll need to replace the harness anyway, so I'm trying to figure out what should go back.

Do other rally 180 owners have batteries? What are your thoughts? If it helps, there was this fusebox next to the battery holder - I have no idea if it was original or not.

What year was the bike? Did it have signals?

I know what you mean about getting a bike all apart. I like the dismantling and notation process, but when I get done, I look around at all the parts and ask myself "what have I done?" It's a little depressing.

Once I get into the paint stage though, the motivation comes back.

Len-

Thanks for the encouragement - I've looked at your restoration pictures before for inspiration.

In answer to your question it's a 1971 180 Rally - no turn signals were on this model.

IT IS original. It's the OG 6volt rectifier.


If i were you .... i would ditch this piece, convert it to Non-battery ( as this was the 6volt voltage regulator / rectifier ) ... and get a new non-battery wiring harness.

You'll lose the brake-light actuating switch on your front brake lever, and you'll have to swap out your brakelight switch on the brakepedal.


The thing is - these pieces are so often HOSED... if you KNOW that it works, then rock it as is. IF you don't, i wouldn't take the chance. It's a part that is usually shot by the time we get our hands on the bikes, and a repop doesn't exist. You could try to bodge in a rectifier from another old bike ( i have a few motoplat serveta 6v rectifiers laying around, etc ).... but if i were you i'd go completely AC 6v ( though 12 would be nice ) and ditch this piece entirely.

Use either the yellow or green wire off your stator to be the single 6v ac output, and run the scooterworks EIK AC conversion harness. ( you don't need an electronic ignition kit on your engine to run this harness - it's just a simplified AC harness for a single-wire power output ).

http://www.scooterworks.com/Harness_Kit_Wiring_Conversion_P3721.cfm


This setup. I just ran it on my friend's battery-model sprint from the same year as your rally, and it worked fine.

I am running into the same problem, do I want to have a battery, or do I want to have no battery. Dilemmas, dilemmas. I guess one good question would be what is the advantage of a bike with a batter vs. a bike without a battery? Other than you can find a wiring harness stateside for a non-battery, but not one with a battery.

Zac

The PROs to having a battery :

1) you have brighter lights that don't vary with the RPM of the engine
2) sometimes the front brake is wired in with a battery switch, so you get the nice amenity of the brake light turning on when you just use the front brake
3) you can sometimes go with a larger capacity battery and tie other accessories off of it.


The CONS of a battery are :

1) The battery and the rectifier both become points of failure. If one or the other goes, your lighting basically dies.
2) you have to maintain the battery. This includes the cost to purchase a battery every few years, buy a trickle charger, time to maintain, etc
3) Wet cell batteries ( which all these old bikes use ) can have boiling issues, where they spit battery acid all over the inside area where the battery is housed, ruin the paint, eat away the metal, etc.
4) More complex wiring harness means harder to troubleshoot


In regard to CON #3, out of ALL the '74 primaveras i've seen, a good half of them have had serious metal rot on the battery glovebox due to battery acid being burped out of the battery, the drain tube not being attached properly, and the sulferic acid eating away all the paint and the metal over time.

My '74 Jet200 also has had serious paint-damage in and around the battery tray where the battery boiled over.

batteries are deadweight.

Holy crap, my login still works...

I ran a Rally-200 for three or four years without a battery. The stator itself threw off so many amps I could power a 12V/55W halogen from 6V. That being said, it was a 200.

I was going to suggest trying a four-pole P-200 rectifier, but after a quick look at the Rally-180 wiring diagram I'm not sure if it's possible. You could potentially hook up the green and yellow wires to the two "G" poles (I think), the B+ goes to positive on the battery, and the fourth pole tells the rectifier how hard to drive the battery so you'll need to take the battery positive all the way to the key and then back to that pole.

But that would require an entirely different harness.

This is LITERALLY the exact same electrics i just converted over.... ran the scooterworks EIK harness...6volt regulator in the glovebox... all AC. Coming off the stator at the junctionbox i had to ground out the yellow wire and tie the two green together, and it was good to go.

So I'm that dense? Or that good? LMAO!

which bike? i'm rewiring my rally, and i thought i had put the wiring issue to rest, but now of course this has me thinking again. and i hate thinking...

U.S. 1974 rally 200. i'm keeping the key switch, but running 60's harness, no battery, signals, or other goodies. plain jane, but key kill and headset kill. you grounded the yellow?

You don't need to ground anything out on a Rally-200.to run a straight harness.

Damnit, I can't find the link. There's a guy on the BBS who collects Rally-200 information. I gave him a diagram for a straight harness that is _very_ easy to set up.

EDIT: Here it is.
http://www.scooterrescue.com/electric_diagrams.html
Just cut out the blinker circuit.

Great site for Rally-200 riders.

yeah, i ran across that page a while back. what i can't gather from it...the "femsatronic decoded" part lists the non-coil wire colors as black, yellow, yellow, green, black, red. the junction in the diagram shows black, purple, yellow, grey, grey, yellow. i'm missing something. the fact that my stator wiring is discolored doesn't help.

what colors are coming off your stator?

If I had a dollar for every stator plate I've seen that didn't match the diagram...

to coil: black, blue, red, green

to junction box (and discoloring + fucked up splices really frustrated me): black, red, purple (?), green (?) and green (?) dead ended together, yellow

First guess (you'll need a multimeter to verify), green, green, and yellow are the charging coil. You can use the yellow for ground and both greens for power. Red probably goes to the headlight and black would be the frame ground. Purple is most likely the kill switch. Purple and red may be swapped, you'll need to check that.

Ah. i just realized that I _did_ ground out a wire.

ha ha .

i knew it.




hehe ..most of the 70's stators had dual wires coming off the stator to run to a rectifier. If you want to use them in an AC / battery-free setup, you have to ground one to get voltage out of the other.

S'okay, I'm bound to be wrong at some point,

i'm wrong all the time, and i'm also bustin' your balls

ok, assuming you are correct about red and purple (and i do think you are), as long as i don't use purple for my brake light, i should be fine?

Or Red. Either Purple or Red will be the kill, the other goes to the headlight. You can ground the double yellows, along with the black, to the frame, or d0 what I do and run them to the rear light, while taking the black directly to the headlight ground. The two greens can run power, but they need to be seperate. Run one to the brake light and one to the rear light. Whala! Instant Rally harness.

EDIT: That said, I do suggest you use a multimeter to check all my assumptions. check green to yellow as a complete circuit (both greens seperately) and red or purple to black as a complete AC circuit.

will do.

what about this, and if i'm way off base, it's because wiring sucks:

red --> key kill
purple --> headset kill
yellow --> black
green #1 --> headlight/taillight
green #2 --> brake light

No.
Red (or purple) -> Kill. run a parallel wire to the headset for an extra.
Purple (or red) -> Headlight power
Black -> Headlight ground
Yellow -> Rear light ground
Green #1 -> Rear light
Green #2 -> to brake switch and back to the brake light.

If you don't want to muck around with creating a short-style brake switch circuit, get yourself a "battery-style" brake light switch. These are normally closed, so that when the brake is not in use, the circuit is open (not connected). That way you run the power to the switch, then run the other contact back tot he brake light. Makes it much easier.

without looking at that dreaded 1974 rally 200 diagram with battery, rectifyier, blah blah blah, which style brake switch did it use?

They're usually normally open.

Here's the explanation:
When the brake is not in use, the switch is engaged. Thus it's "normal" position is when the brake is in use.

A normally open switch makes no connaction when it is disengaged. A normally closed switch makes a connection when it is disengaged (BTW, normally closed are typically used on later P-style battery bikes).

With a normally open switch, run a ground up to one pole of the switch. Then run the power up to the other pole and take a power from the same pole back to the light. When the switch is closed (brake not in use) the electricity will follow the path of least resistance back into ground. When the circuit is open, the electricity travels up to the switch and then back to the light (because no connection to ground is made.

Witha normally closed switch, run a power to one pole of the switch and take the other pole back to the light. In this way, the connection is broken until you engage the brake, when the connection is made and power flows to the light.

Got it?

yep. that explains the goddamn ground on the taillight (edit: brake light) on the diagrams i been looking at. shit, or does it.

(edit: got it. with a normally closed switch, i'd wind up with a continuously burning brake light until i hit the brake pedal, which would turn the brake light off. yes?)

If you used a normally-open harness with a normally-closed switch, yes. The converse is also true.

EDIT: Let me know when you're confused, okay? I took me a half hour with an electrical engineer to understand this. After I figured that out in my head, everything else was pretty easy.

http://scooterhelp.com/electrics/wiring/VBC1_VLB1_VNL2_VNC1.pdf <<-- i'm assuming the circuit is continuous at the brake switch, while NOT depressing the brake pedal. depressing the brake pedal would break the circuit and the juice would cruise through the brake light. yes?

Exactly.

I removed my battery five years ago during the rebuild, i much prefer it. I must admit though, that my headlight isn't as bright as i would like. as a bonus though, i know use the battery tray as a space to carry a wrap for my wrenches.