Modern Vespa

I don't know if this would be better placed in the technical section or not. Jess? For some of us that live where the snow will be flying soon. I thought we should start a topic on winterizing so folks can share their methods. This will be especially helpful to new scooter owners. I met an old motorcycle rider today (70 years old) that now rides a Piaggio moped and he said that properly winterizing your bike is one of the most important things can do to extend it's life in our climate. I winterized my LT150 last year a bit early (mid-November) because I was so interested in getting it right. Thoughts?

What all did you do to your LX, Vic? (I thnk it is in the manual, but I haven't looked at winterizing yet.)

I plan to do the same as I do for my '58 MG. I add Sta-Bil fuel stabilizer, and top the tank off with 93 octane Sunoco. On the MG, I drain enough coolant to add anti-freeze to bring it up to -20F (I run distilled water and Water Wetter in the summer, so I flush the system each spring.)

I top off the batteries with distilled water, and make sure they have a good charge. I don't remove the batteries. I start the car maybe once a month and let it warm up real good. If there's no snow in the drive, I'll run it back and forth a bit to exercise things, and if there's no salt on the road, I'll run it up and down the road a few times.

That's the plans for the scoots, too. Gotta remember that the Met has coolant in there, and check the level.

I have a great site saved in my favorites on winterizing motorcycles (but it applies to scooters too) that I'll try to figure out how to post here. If not I'll list all that I did. One thing that seems very important is to use a battery tender. I bought a pretty decent one at AutoZone for $29.95. Its a Schumacher. Most car buff highly recommend this brand. I'll work on posting that link. P.S. I like your car "collection". Suburu WRX's are very "capable" cars.

Thanks! Yea, it goes. stock 227 HP, mine is around 270.

I've been going to get a Battery Tender for several years, but never have.

add sta-bil to your fuel and run it thru the carb.
run the tank out as best you can.
drain the carb & the tank
keep the front tire off the ground so you don't get a flat spot on it.
pull the battery and throw it on the bench w/ a batt tender.

beyond that you should be solid.

best,
-greasy

I'm betting most Vespas have plastic tanks, but metal tanks should be kept full to prevent rust forming inside.

Should any "winterizing" be done if you ride through the winter (as opposed to just garaging my scoot). I live in DC, an area with generally moderate winters. It gets cold and we usually have a just a few frigid stretches, but I ride around town with temps down to the 30's.

Any suggestions for keeping things running smoothly?

Kevin

P.S. - The Redskins stunk up the joint yesterday! So did DC United. Bad day for my teams,

Can someone explain how to post a link to a message here? Thanks

just type in the URL of where you want to link us to, or copy and paste it from the web site itself. Something in the format of

http://www.modernvespa.com or even just the plain www.modernvespa.com works as long as it starts with www (some sites don't)

Any volunteers to summarize the information here for a technical article?

Hope this works. I found this site last year and it has some good info on winterizing bikes (works for scooters too ) Here is the link: www.clarity.net/adam/winter-storage.html

Well it didn't work as planned but if you type the address above into your browser you'll get to the site. Maybe a "pro" here can hook everyone up with an actual link .

www.clarity.net/adam/winter-storage.html

does that make me a pro?

yep!

I fixed it for you. You did it correctly, but forgot to put a space in front of the www's. You're the pro!

Is there something I can buy or make to keep my front wheel off the ground? Thanks!

Do you want to keep it elevated and off the pavement, or just not on the dirt? I'm not sure you could reasonably keep both the back wheel and the front wheel off the ground simultaneously, but if you just want to keep the front wheel off the dirt, you could simple slip a piece of wood under the wheel.

I might have misinterpreted your question, though.

Last year after I winterized it (most of the stuff listed on the link-pm me if you'd like a more detailed description of what I did) I put the scooter on the center stand. Believe it or not, I went out and spun the front wheel about a 1/4 turn every two weeks so not to get any flat spots on the front tire. Yeah, I'm that crazy about my vehicles 8)