Modern Vespa

I just came inside from wrenching on my SS180...prettying it up, getting it ready for the rally tomorrow.

I loctited the 6 bolts that hold the flywheel fan to the center boss thing. Remember that GS / SS have a 2 piece flywheel - the outer fan part bolts to the center cam section ( every other bike these two pieces are riveted or welded together ). The GS uses 3 bolts to hold them together, the SS180 uses 6. The SS180 has a big design flaw with this because there's seriously NO clearance between the cowl louvers and the spinning 6 bolts. If one of the bolts comes slightly loose, it thrashes your louvers. It's why so few SS180's you see have intact, unbent louvers.


The 6 dome-headed bolts i used previously were on using lock washers, which spaced them out about 2-3mm more from the surface of the flywheel, and put them dangerously close to the cowl louvers... so i thought that removing the washers and loctiting them down was a good idea... to lower the profile.


Well, fuck.

I put it all together, kicked over my scooter, and nothing. Checked the spark...no spark. WTF? this bike ran fine the other day. Tried a different HT coil. Nothing.

Pulled the flywheel and i see this mess of copper shavings.

One of the screws i used to bolt down the flywheel was a few mm longer than the rest. Never matter before because it never scraped on the coils. But because i removed the lock washers, suddenly it was 2mm deeper...

and it gouged the everliving shit out of my ignition feeder coil on the stator, ruining it.

I thought "well, that's it, then...i'm riding the Jet200". That sucks because the SS180 has been running like an absolute champ and i was excited to take it on a 60 mile long ride.

But, these coils are easily swappable...so i called my buddy who i just changed out his Sprint from points to electronic ignition. "hey - can i have your old stator" "sure". He takes a picture of it for me, and the ignition feeder coil is the same.

I breathed a sigh of relief...i didn't know if the one i had was GS / SS specific, but it looks identical.

So, tomorrow morning we'll see if i can't get it in shape quickly. Good thing i took the day off.

-Eric

Ohhh man... significant suckage.

Hope you get it squared! Cool beans on locating a replacement so quickly.

At least you've got the opportunity for a quick fix.

Good luck.

Shit Eric! Thank goodness for your friend. Hope it works out in the morning!

i'm just praying it's the same coil.

It SHOULD be the same coil. It LOOKS the same... Even the wire colors are the same. I'll find out tomorrow morning.

With these coils, it's all a matter of how close they sit to the magnet part of the flywheel spinning around it.

I just had to vent because it's another one of these "broken by my own retarded doings" ...the bike would have ridden fine tomorrow if i would have just left it alone.

I hope it all works out for you. You can take some comfort knowing that the rest of us do shit like that all the time!

I am SO sorry, man.

I've done shit like that before, and i just sit there and stare at something and think, "I am such a stupid bastard. Why the fuck did I do something so completely unnecessary without even thinking it through?"

You WILL fix it (and at least you know what's wrong), but, DAMN.

The (very slightly) good news: You can measure the wire diameter and count the turns as you unwrap it, then rewind it with new wire and put the information you gained up as a resource for all.

The bad news: As near as I can tell, the SS coil is a #91429, while the Sprint is a #93308. They may still interchange, but, as you know, Piaggio didn't tend to change part numbers for the same part.

I hope it gets well soon.

And, don't be too hard on yourself.

- Eric

At least it happened the you who knows exactly how to fix it.

MAN that sucks! I've done something similar at school, on projects around the house, etc... "It's within tolerance but if I do this little bit more it'll be dead on...curchunk... " Comes with being a perfectionist. Look at that SS180 of yours, it is BEAUTIFUL!!! If you weren't so quality driven it wouldn't look like that, just comes at a price sometimes. I'm sure that doesn't help right now though...

I really hope you get it sorted in time for the Rally!

where's Al with his '90% of repairs are the product of unnecessary tinkering' quip? I thought he'd have been all over this thread by now

Man..I bet he's pulln' his hair out right about now...I hope he pulls it off though!

damn! those things happen, if the new part works an ace like you can have it back together in time. good luck and have fun at the rally.

Damn, that must have been frustrating.

While I have a quite dubious beater and no beauty SS180, I hear your pain. I had a flywheel rip up a slightly ill-fitting new stator recently (whose backing plate was a bit thicker than the original, but still hard to see by eye). It ran great until I lost all ignition on the way to work and looked in the inspection hole to see insulation rubbed off and exposed and split wire. I had a machininst grind it down (and he also nicked a new coil I hadn't bothered to take off since I only wanted him to work on the back - doh!), but I was still a good ten days off the road...

I hope the new coil works and you're good to go soon!

Dude, you crack me up. From your "failblog.org" avatar to your little quips to visions of bears riding on tricycles.

Hope it all works out in time to get to the rally. If not, then at least your scoot will sit in the new mint state for a bit longer.

Sometimes I am too kind to rub salt into open wounds. This is one time and one colleague for whom such kindness is appropriate.

And to be as accurate as possible, I refer to "voluntary" not "unnecessary" tinkering.

Al

I did the same thing once on a super engine that had a two piece flywheel but it had four bolts, with two viewing holes. I had never seen one like that. I didn't kick it over though, I was lucky to notice the rubbing before trying to start it. I think I was checking the point gap and heard something scrapping.

well, homeboy found a coil. the SS was there last night.

Rock on Eric!

WOOT! Glad to hear it and hope you had fun...

I wanna know the rest of the story.

- Eric

Glad to hear that the best SS around got her day in the sun! She deserves to be seen.

OK ok ...i should have posted a reply.

Friday i had off ... and the COIL on my buddy's sprint was identical, so i popped it on.

Then i went and got the proper length bolts from the metric supply store, and loctited those on.

THEN by sheer luck, my buddy had an original GL150 / SS180 tail light mounted on his wall, so i bought it off of him for 10 bucks. Then i drove it up to the metal polishers ( yes, i know, it's supposed to be chromed, but i didn't have time for that ).

2 hours and $10 later, the taillight was done... and looking amazing. So, i pulled off the plastic one i temporarily had on my SS180, and mounted on the real deal.

So, rode it all weekend so far... about 100 miles ... engine is fine, starts first kick, no issues. ( knock on wood )

-Eric

Thanks for the heads up.

I have the exact same issue & am using ripple? washers (not split ring) on pan head hex bolts.

BTW, the shop that welded new louvres to the cowl totally botched it - now an thinking to replace the entire area around the louvres from a Sprint cowl - just cut out the entire panel & weld that in.

\\osc

Oh, saw some absolutely beautiful SS180s @ Amerivespa - red, white & blue, all lined up -- ZOMG. Finally saw a true pavonne blue.

Hold up on the Sprint cowl thing.

The louvers are LONGER on the SS / Rally. They are the same profile as the Sprint / Super / GT, etc... but the sport bikes have much longer louvers, so it's not as simple as cutting out the area on a sprint cowl and putting them on a rally / SS, sadly.

I had to hack them out of a busted up rally cowl ( that thankfully had a couple salvageable louvers ) because they are the proper length.

I have heard lately that someone has repopped the louvers, though. Maybe check in with bulletproof scooters or bar italia ?

Eric -

Just for out of curiosity, is your 180 a battery or a non-battery bike?

I had looked up part numbers, but I realized that they were for battery bikes, like mine, and that yours maybe non-battery.

Thanks.

yeah... non-battery. Basically the same as an early sprint or rally 180, with the 3 circuits ( blue, green, yellow ) and the red ignition circuit.

Oddly, only 3 coils on the stator... feeder ignition coil, and then 2 others... ( i think horn and brakelight were the same coil, and headlight / taillight on the other )

-Eric

Got it.

It's good to know what can be interchanged, for future reference.

Does anyone have an interchange list (written down - not just in their head ) for non-obvious things like coils and internal parts? It'd be a good thing to have posted somewhere for general reference.

- Eric

speaking of louvres repair or replacement. Two louvres on this scoot were mangled. A good friend of mine who is a welder, guillatined two small strips of tin then bent them down the center and mig welded them on. I ground and sanded them down and repainted, hard to tell which were old and which were new.