Modern Vespa

I notice that the Ball Bearings are totally Exposed, on the Steering Head Bearings. Looks way wrong to me, as if some sort of seal is missing.

Is this normal?

Any bike I've ever worked on, has had the head bearings visually-sealed.

Normal on the MP3.

Yep - sux but is normal.

I was surprised by the exposed bearings also. So after cleaning and re-packing both top and bottom bearing sets I simply wound some neat stretchy electrical tape around both bearings.

The tape has been on now for about 3,000 miles and still looks like it is doing the job.

The stretchy tape I found in Lowes electrical dept.

Good idea ! This is 1 reason why I don't ride my MP3s on dirt/sand.

How did you clean them? I was thinking maybe a section of rubber tube and a pair of hose clamps to keep it wrapped tight and in place would be good since it would ride entirely outside the bearing mechanism. Seems like the tape might get drawn into the mechanism over time.

Another cover idea is to cut a piece of an inner tube that would fit.
Then you could move the cover whenever you need to and then put it back.

Quite easy to remove the top adjusting nuts, then lift bearing cage and balls together. Just slobber some grease around to ensure the balls remain in the cage prior to lifting out.

Put the nuts back on maybe 2 or 3 turns which will allow the steering shaft to drop down enough to deal with the bottom cage. Here I cheated and cleaned and re-packed the bottom set without actually removing them from the shaft. Dropping the shaft about 1" gave me lots of room to get in with a small paint brush and wd40.

The tape is stuck really well to the shaft and nuts above(I pre cleaned that area with acetone) and the bottom end of the tape hangs like a skirt surrounding the grease and bearing balls. Seems to work ok

Don't worry too much about the central steering tube - it has no axial load, and hardly even needs the ball-bearings.

Absolutely right.

It's just nice to feel the smooth action after lubing.


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