James' Scooter Saga Solved!!

Continued from Last Post

From last time I wrote, had some issues to resolve again, I got my RWC but the motor was smoking and behaving badly. I broke it down again and replaced the crank and seals again. I also managed to repair the rear hub (if you recall the bearing retainer was welded in). Got my dremil into it, cut it out and popped out the bits, luckily the thread was undamaged, and came up like new! I got the cases and motor looking really clean and I think that every part has been replaced/serviced and up to grade. Put it all back together, started first shot, but still had smoke issues....... very unhappy at this point, did the job twice but I guess I put in all that effort onto a set of cases that must have a warp issue internally or a crack that is not allowing a seal to happen between the gear box and rotor area.

OK, picked my self back up and kicked in plan 'B'.

Got the LML P150 motor I had as a backup, and did an inspection. This motor looks fresh, popped the head and cylinder off and inspected the inside via the clutch cover and rotor area with a micro torch (those with a bendy head look like ET ) and the guts look brand new!
Decided that I was not going to split this motor, quite frankly a bit sick of all the rebuilds and felt I needed to get some time on the road before the weather gets bad. I did change the cylinder, head and piston as there was scoring in the cylinder and the piston was a 3rd over sized and had scoring on it - and its cheaper to replace than machine a 4th oversize and also that would have been the limit as 4th is as far as you can go. Dave hand cut the ports on a new 3 port cylinder and honed it nicely. Put it all together, did the electrical conversion (this was fun, I love electronics) and mounted the CDI and regulator.

Converted the motor to a 8 inch (very simple, dust cover plate, brakes and rear hob fir straight on from the old motor) Mounted the lot - it went straight in, no issue. Fired it up - had an idle issue (would not stay on unless I opened up the throttle), did a carb rebuild and found that the mixture screw was missing - reassembled and now she is running well!

No smoke - I was worried about the seals, but they seem OK.
I am running in the motor now as I have the new rings in it, but for the last couple of weeks she has been sweet! I think she has finally in one piece - can't wait to open her up, will have to wait for another 600km for the run in to finish, but seems to have more power (it is a 3port motor and 20/20 carb!).

Have to sort out a couple of mystery vibration in the body, but I am happy with her.

Another Asian Scooter Saved!

Another Asian Restored Vespa "Saved"!

This is James' Story.

James is from Melbourne, he fell in love with a gorgeous old Vespa in Bali and decided to buy her. I mean have a look at it...why wouldn't you fall for her? :)

It had been 'restored' there and he wanted to bring it back to Australia.
After organising transport he awaited the arrival of his dream scooter.

Woooo Hoooo!

Scooter Day :)

Hmmm, I wonder what it is?

James soon discovered things were just not right. The old Vespa wasn't running that great so he decided to investigate.

What he found wasn't a 'restored' engine but something badly patched and bodgied in order to flog to the Western market.

Glue, Glue and more Glue!

Nice Machining Work in Bali....... what with?? a CHISEL!?! Auughhhh!!

When at first you don't succeed- Epoxy it!

That's The Asian Vespa Restorers Best Friend- Other than Bog!

"Nah, they'll never see the inside of the engine, just Epoxy it"

That's Better!
Good on you James...

OMG

Rear axle bearing retainer Welded in!! – a job for another day – seals and bearing OK thank, God!!)

A bit of a mess. Look restored to you?

Other buyers beware...they don't expect you to ever find this stuff, they want you to pay your few thousand bucks and just bugger off!!

Clutch Bell Gasket Gunk

More to fix

Getting her back together

Engine Back In
Motor Work:
a. Full strip down!
b. All seals and bearings (FW side – Oil Gallery blocked up and off set, Clutch side – damaged from Cush Gear Plate)
c. Cush kit (springs and plates)
d. Cruciform
e. New Carby


Modifications:
1. Machined cases where previously repaired (poor gauging of material to match cases - nice and smooth now)
2. Replacement of all cylinder studs (suspicious threads)
3. Drilled out bearing oil galleries (incorrectly blocked in previous repair - sure to fail eventually)
4. Dremel the seal seats flat internal and external (previous repair had left material that off-set seal seating - nice and flat now)
5. Machined cylinder bead flat (poor fit when cases were matched, needed excess gasket material to work. Also – heaps of ‘crap’ to help seal the ill fitted seal)
6. Machined cylinder head- piston not clear of head (piston would hit head, it had two thin gasket plates to compensate, now fitted without the two gasket - piston is clear of head)
7. Clutch nuts replaces (had normal nuts, not castellated with basket and butchered to remove original nut)
8. FW nut replaced (poor blunt nut replaced)
9. Main drive gear - nuts & retention washer replaced
10. 98mm engine stud added (missing, the long one next to swing arm - bodgey engine stud with nuts used)
11. 14 new X 11mm nuts and stainless steel washers / lock washers and heaps of other crap screws/nuts and bolts
12. Added correctly fitting shim washer on rear axle (leaked and had 3mm play, now nice and tight - and dry!)


Other:
13. All brakes
14. All cables
15. All cable adjusters (most missing or broken)
16. Repaired gear cable control plate / cable holder (had been welded and would not accept correct cable butt end - drilled to correct size, filed clean)
17. Rebuilt brake switch (clean, unbend and solder - removed masking tape)
18. Added cable crimps to all junction box cabling (wire twisted around terminals)
19. Added light to Speedo
20. Front light holder repaired (missing clips, bad connectors and just plain bad)
21. Bulb holder rear light repaired (bad connectors, bare wires and just plain bad)
22. New lights all round
23. Replaced head stem bearings (front end would shudder under braking - now nice and tight)
24. Added mirror
25. Wired in indicators and added switch (poorly added - now works fine, not sure I will keep these on)
26. All wiring joins now soldered, shrink warped or crimped
27. Rebuilt stator plate (Replaced bad wiring)
28. Fitted luggage/tire rack correctly
29. Fitted petrol cap rubber seals
30. Fitted FW points dust cover (Kidney shaped rubber on FW fan cover)
31. Fitted rear shocker (nuts under rear seat had com off!)
32. Renewed control lever bolts (old ones just crap)
33. Added cotter pins to brakes (nails used)
34. Added cotter pins to rear/front axles (nails used)
35. Refit luggage rack
36. Condenser
37. HT Coil
38. Points
39. Set timing
40. Educated myself about all things Zen and Vespa.......

ALL Done – NICE !!



Fingers crossed – starts first kick now, let’s see how reliable she is now.

So that was James story.

There's many many like them too.

Sad but true.

Now....if we can just convince some of the boofheads on the hardcore scooter advice sites that "trashing it" just isn't an option.

That means the Asian restorers win that battle and another classic Vespa is lost to the great scrapheap in the sky..

No Way!

Come on guys- you need to adjust the attitude a bit.

Don't look at them as Asian Bodges, look at them as a classic worth saving.

It's that simple, Just save their souls!

The trouble with buying your dream scooter over the net..

The trouble with...

ASIAN VESPA AND LAMBRETTA RESTORATIONS
By Sam Schembri-Portland


Never before has the old saying "Buyer Beware" had more significance for the modern day scooterist.


If you've been involved in the booming scooter industry or keen on old scooters at all, you would have heard all about the thousands of scooters sold all around the world each year which start their new lives in sweaty Asian chop shops.

Of course there are some good ones out there, I am referring to the many many hundreds of 'dealers' who are set up to rip people off for as long as they can before being shut down.

The aim of their game is to find the cheapest scooters they can, remove all the original, pitted and dull looking parts and replace them with poorly chromed and badly made parts that they think we would like to see on the scooters. They add home made shims where they need to in order to make parts pit without rattling and if a goo coke can shim won't fix it then they have learned that epoxy resin will!

If you don't have access to "O" rings you can simply make them out of some cotton and electrical tape!

This is how the story unfolds all over the world....

A person spots an old Vespa or Lambretta online and falls in love with it.......thats's fair enough-who wouldn't?

They check it out from all angles, looks good, it has a great write up by someone who sounds like they know what they are talking about so that gives them some confidence.

They search online and find that other scooters are fetching similar prices all over the world so they decide to think about it some more.

That night they can't get to sleep as they think about how cool it will be to pull up at the coffee shop and watch all the heads turn to check out the old scooters and it's cool rider!

The next day they check it out again, notice someone else is bidding and as they have pictured themselves on it already, riding through the streets with the warm summer air on their face they decide there and then to buy it.

A few weeks and a bit of extra cash later the crate arrives at the port, yipppeeee. They rush down and pay all the appropriate fees to all and sundry, organise to get the crate home, dreaming of their first sidewalk macchiato.

After all the unpacking and admiring from afar it's time to start her up, or at least try to!

This is the step where people start to realise what they've bought into the country and where I usually get all my business from.

Sometimes they'll be lucky and get going for the time being. That might be for 10kms, 100kms or even 1000kms but when things go wrong and they finally have to drop and open the engine they discover things that make their hair curl!

On investigation, one of the very first things they hear from the so called 'people in the know' is ...'can't help you-sorry.'

Most shops just won't touch Asian restored scooters. There's probably some legal reason why Vespa shops won't touch them. This has got to be the single biggest warning sign of them all when doing your purchsing homework. When you ring the bigger Vespa shops in the country and ask "Can you service my old Vespa?" , one of the very first questions they'll ask is where is it from? I'm almost 100% sure they all give you the same answer.

So what do you do if you've bought an Asian restored Vespa and it won't go?
EMAIL ME NOW!

We should be able to get you going again and well enough to pass your roadworthy test which is our goal of course.

You can also look at this phenomenon from another angle completely. This is the scenario I am personally fighting against. Essentially, every single old Vespa or Lambretta coming out of Asia has been restored to death. Despite the restorers thinking they are selling an old scooter to someone to use as transport, in actual fact they've done the opposite. They are modifying them so heavily or the work is of such a poor standard that the new owners dreams of riding a classic scooter to the cafes will never be realised without first having to spend much more hard earned cash on it.

Scootissimo came about to try to help those people get those old scooters on the road rather than losing them to the Asian Scooter rip off scams, it's bad enough that people have spent thousands already on their scooter dreams, throwing good money after bad hurts even more..

Email now if this sounds like it's happened to you or even someone you know.

We are NOT here to say.."that's what you getwhen you buy a scooter online from Asia"! ...which is all you'll hear from lots of scooter shop people all over the country, believe me! I've heard it all myself!!

We are here to help you, for a reasonable price we'll get you scooting again and what's more..SAFELY!! We'll remove all the crappy scooter bling and home made modifications so you'll pass your roadworthy inspection with flying colours. We don't pass anything back to you with any kind of guarantee (we can't do that) we just get your scooter running smootly and you'll have that long awaited "scooter grin" ...sitting at your local cafe admiring your pride and joy on the footpath.

NEED HELP GETTING YOUR ASIAN RESTORED SCOOTER RUNNING AND FIT FOR REGO?

Email now!!

We CAN Help.

:)

All my Bikes and Scooters

ought

Today I found a picture of an old bike I used to ride on my grandparents farm and it got me to thinking how many 2 wheeled toys I had owned over the years, the different farm bikes, road bikes and now scooters.

Here's my 'Bikeography'

My very first ride, the Deltek Grass Scrubber 50cc

I remember learning to balance on the minibike by being pushed along the driveway by the grown ups when I was about 3 years old with my Dad and Uncle Steve running along side to make sure I got the hang of it. Then they fired it up !

Hot days, red dirt and rows and rows of track in the South Australia orange groves to just
ride all day. I rode in shorts and tshirt and never remember getting hurt or burnt- ahh the good ole days :)

I was shattered when Dad took the engine out of the mini bike to make a go cart when I was about 5 or 6, the AZ was way too small for me by then.... but still!!! I never got over it..sob sob.. :)

This next one was my toy on my grandparents farm. I started riding this model when I was about 9 or 10. I wasn't allowed to ride it until I could touch the ground. I remember running to the machinery shed every weekend when we first drove in the driveway, I'd jump on and stretch as far as I could groaning as I tried to reach the ground with my bare foot!! :)

On this bike I mastered dam bank jumps, skids and slides and was able to even pop little mono's by age 11. The friends I used to bring home for the weekend would be a bit white knuckled on the back for a few kms but soon starting grinning as big as me!

HONDA 100

SUZUKI TS 185

Back to the riverland for holidays, I'd jump on my uncles Suzi and race around the old familiar tracks in Loxton on the block

SUZUKI ER185

(I think?)

Another family farm rider

Vespa PX150 or 200

(can't remember which)

This was 'a Loaner'

This came about in a funny way, it belonged to the son of my very first next door neighbour in Mt Barker SA. He asked if I'd like to borrow it to get to work and back while I was saving for a car, I used to ride my pushy to work but I think he felt sorry for me one winter and said his son would appreciate it if i could keep it running for him while he was away.

Which I did, until he came back....from jail!!

He sold it for drugs I heard years later but I had the best few months ever on that old scooter- vowed there and then in 1986 that I would own a Vespa one day. I waited 19 years for that dream to come true!

YAMAHA DT250

Road/Trail

This was the first bike I ever 'owned outright' and had out on the open road (and bush-which was way more fun!)

SUZUKI GSX250

This was my first real 'road' bike, I loved it. I rode it from Adelaide to Victoria about 3 times, even moved house on it once! It had a quirk where I had to lift the seat before starting and spray some fuel down the top of the carby air filter just to get her going, I rode around with a Rexona pump action bottle filled with fuel under my seat for 3 years in all kinds of weather, now I'm older and wiser (and in the Safety Business!) I'd probably not do that now :)

YAMAHA XS650
Man, I LOVED this bike. When I owned it I was living in the Adelaide Hills before the tunnel went in and it was a joy to ride to "town" thru the hills. They were no match for the old girl, she was a beast- mine was chocolate brown (brush painted) with more gaffa tape than backstage at an AC/DC concert!!!

The back road from the Great Eastern Hotel in Littlehampton to Birdswood was my fave ride.

SUZUKI TS185

I didn't ride for many many years until I had the chance to buy a cheapo 'bush basher' from a family friend. It was fun for a while then gave it to my brother to have fun on.

YAMAHA 100 Ag
In my shed at the moment awaiting a rear tyre, was my brothes. This old beast will just be my 'camping basher' or for some rough fun in the paddocks next door.

and then the Vespa Bug bit me!

Lola VBC 150 Super Franki VBC 150 Custom Sophia SS180

I think there's a few farm bikes and rat bikes missing but this is the main list.

I've had some fun on 2 wheels, I think when you are bitten by the bug as I was at age 3, you are hooked for life!


Arabella, purchased Oct 2009

Some troubles with Lola

The weather has really warmed up now and we are into scooter season again.
I decided to roll Lola out for a little cruise the other day but couldn't get her started. I put it down to the old dodgey broken and regularly fixed fuel tap so I set about replacing it. That done along with a few other overdue jobs and I was ready to get going, but alas- still no go.
I worked back from the spark plug after finding an intermittant spark only and discovered a bad coil, new one fitted and all is great again, much more powerful ride...feels more 'gutsy'.

The Rebirthing of Sophia Part 2

I've put some new videos on youtube, Part 2 of "The Rebirth of Sophia" as well as "Lola's Story" and "Black & Gold" a little show about Francesca.

You can check them out here on my special channel at Youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/user/scootissimo

Today I think I sorted out the bearings and seals, tomorrow I will visit Higgo's and bead blast the other side of the case and start to think about what is needed to get it happening sometime before christmas! :)

I am waiting on GPS to let me know how they are going with the front hub assembly but I am definately getting closer.

STILL TO DO LIST:

• Bead blast other half of case
• Higgo will remill sections of case after he's made some minor repairs
• Sandblast then beadblast hubs and backing plates to remove last of paint.
• Get Higgo to mill the old hubs, clean them up for new brakes
• Blast the old flywheel
• Finish polishing the clutch housing to get old rub marks off
• Renovate front end-awaiting hub assy, but I have faith in the boys at GPS if he says he has one it's probably there somewhere...he says he just has to find it :)
• Clean up the engine bits, re-hone cylinder, clean up piston, clean pits and gouges from inside cylinder head-from very obvious prior ring explosion issues!!
• Renew all bushes and buffers
• Check steering bearings
• Check Suspension
• Renew engine mounts with nice urethane ones if I can find some (if not Higgo said he can make them for me)
• Find an air filter (anyone got a spare?) ;) I have a modified foam pod ready to go so not tooo stressed there...
• Check out the wiring loom while her guts is open as well as headset electrics

That will do for now!

When all that is done I'll think about sitting down with my bags and bags of parts and the manuals and see what's still missing, it was too hard to tell when I was pulling it apart as so many things looked different to my other scooters (both VBC's) and I assumed at the time they were original but have since discovered otherwise!

I take it the tabbed clutch nut and washer is the same on this model as the others, still to get to that bit...but I definately didn't remove one! It was a nylock nut by memory..eeek.

More to come folks

What a difference a spray makes!

Glass Bead Blasting is Fun!!

It's been a long time between blogs for me, busy with work, life and trying to keep warm and dry.

Thankfully we've seen the end of the long cold dark days (...she says as she looks over her shoulder out the window, to the hail and wind...!) OK...so most of the long dark days are overwith :)

I finally got my act together and proceeded to the next stage of the SS180 project, the clean up of parts.

Here's one side done and one in need of attention, makes a HUGE difference!

In the process of the pull down I continued to find some astonsihing asian shortcuts.
This I had heard of, but never actually come across it...until now.

It's the drink can shim!!

and for some reason, they reamed out the hole! See above pic- It's supposed to have a nice round hole there where the gear selector rod goes thru to selector! God knows why? All going to be fixed up by Higgo and will be as good as new when done so no stress there but you still have to ask yourself why!!!!

Stay tuned for more.....

Higgo's New Toy

Find a job you love & you'll never work a day in your life!

A wise woman once said to me,

'Find a job you love doing and you'll never have to work a day in your life'.

How very true!

Enter......SCOOTISIMO :)

About 3 and a half years ago I decided to start a new business venture, one that I would enjoy working in and maybe earn me some moolah along the way. I decided my business vision needed to be simple, to provide other scooter riders with parts at a much cheaper price than they were currently paying. To me, it felt like people were being punished for having an interest in old scooters, in that the parts were as dear as poison, if in fact you could find them! It also occurred to me that this might be keeping people off scooters, classic ones anyway. I knew a couple of people with old scoots in their shed that couldn't do anything to them because of the lack of decent parts or they just couldn't afford them anyway. A very counter productive industry in my opinion.

I had bought an old VBC and was finding it hard to find parts for, well, parts in my budget range. I started ringing around the scooter shops to feel my way a little. I discovered that parts were available and mostly aftermarket stuff as Piaggio stopped making the genuine stuff many many years ago. There are a handful of manufacturers in Italy and Europe, cranking out good quality stuff but I just couldn't afford their parts so went looking elsewhere. I emailed many shops and dealers all over the world, slowly compiling a list of the better known and trusted parts suppliers. I rang the international suppliers and during long winded passionate conversations about old scooters managed to glean a bit more info here and there before discovering one final fact. It started to dawn on me that many roads in the scooter parts world lead to India. I jumped on the net and started some investigations. I bought parts initially from a manufacturer in New Delhi, and even though they suited the budget they turned out to be pretty damn average but we live and learn.

Side Note- it's here that I apologise to some of my earlier customers for some of the inferior products I had in stock..it won't happen again folks- I guarantee that!

The next supplier I went to was a bit more expensive but parts were getting better, and to cut a very long and tedious story short, after 3 years of searching and climbing I made it to the top of the pile.

I now buy my parts from one of the very same companies stocking the shelves of shops like:

Beedspeed in the UK, Seventies Scooters in France, Thai Charoen in Bangkok, Lambretta Teile in Germany, Eddy Bullet & Lambretta Cottage in the UK, just to name a few. I will be offering new stock in about 4 weeks and will be adding an order form to the website so stay tuned and thanks for your support.

Asian Scooter Restorations. The BIG Picture!

When I was searching online for my first scooter a few years back, it became very apparent to me that beautiful classic old Vespas and Lambrettas were being ripped apart and 'modernised' for convenience in all corners of Asia to feed the ever burgeoning appetite for classic scooters in the western world.

I've talked about this before on this blog, it's a big part of my life as I get so many emails from people needing help with parts for their scooters. They've spent upwards of $4000 by the time they get it here from god knows where in Asia and don't really want to spend much more but need to get it running. It's Catch 22 alright! "Do I suck it up and live with the fact that I just spent $4000 on a shiny useless paperweight with wheels or, do I spend more hard earned cash on replacement parts and try and get it registered?

Nicnamed Vietbodges, Vietscoots and Frankenscoots, they are classics hacked to death for a few thousand dollars.

But what burns me is, if you stop for a minute and think about the big picture here, it's heartbreaking and extremely scary. Think about all of the consequences of 'restoring' a classic scooter in Asia.

Old Vespas, many of which have been ridden around Asia for the last 40 years have all of a sudden become hip and trendy in the western world. We see them, we fall in love with them and for whatever other reason, we go in search of our dream. Maybe its for the cheaper fuel, to relive the Mod days or, damn it... just for fun! :)

The Asian chop shop owners see their prey and pounce. They're pulling the classics off the road to flog to us at an alarming rate. They rip all the genuine parts off to 'modernise' them and after covering them in shiny badly chromed after market parts, they flip them to unsuspecting westerners online who've fallen in love with 8 or so pictures of a shiny piece of poo they'll never be able to get registered.
So have you ever wondered what happens to the original parts? If not binned or able to be restored they are sold on. I know a dealer in India who buys entire vintage engines for scrap, or he'll send 100 of the 'better' engines to Thailand to be patched and bodged for the next Ebay sale. A tragic ending for a classic old scooter.

When the scooters are stripped in Asia, they are also often welded and bogged up to cover 40 years of dents and dings, sometimes even to disguise them as a rarer model.

Get a load of these pieces of faked poo

This first one from a dealer in Melbourne, a car dealer trying to make more cash it seems! the other pic from scooterbbs.

People with no idea are sucked in every day to the tune of thousands of dollars. As you'd expect, life in Asia can be rough for an old scooter. You can also imagine some of the patch up welds and bog that are found on Asian 'restored' scooters. I will always use that term very very loosely, I prefer to call it "restored to death". Some of these old scooters are bastardised so much during the process they can never be registered for road use in the countries they are destined for. Buyers of these scooters from the USA, UK, Canada, Australia, NZ to name a few, find it extremely difficult to get them on the road as the registration specifications for road use in some of these countries are quite stringent. This is of no concern to Mr. Hu Flung Dung of course, the Asian scooter chop shop owner with the big smile on this face. They get paid and are laughing all the way to the bank. They might be lucky enough to repeat the whole process a few times before having to pack up and move shop when things get a bit heated. How hard would it be to find a particular dealer in Ho Chi Minh City when you've been sucked in and bought a dodgey scooter from the other side of the world. I often wonder how many times this scenario has played out all over the world? It's probably not that appropriate but I become more angry at the loss of the old scooters than I do feeling sorry for the people who lost money.

There has to be hundreds, if not thousands of old scooters lying in sheds all over the planet, unable to be ridden or registered, they are gone forever, restored to death.

The saga continues...

I haven't been spending much time in the shed due to the weather and STILL waiting for the 'handyman' to fix the potbelly stove chimney so I can stoke it up and stay warm out there. I am an eternal optimist and when he said he'd be here 3 weeks ago, I believed him :)

This week I've had new guttering on 2 sides of the house installed and 2 rather large trees in my front yard lopped off to keep them away from the power lines so that's enough excitement and money out of the piggy bank for now! **gulp**

Hopefully this project doesn't get any bigger than it looks at the moment because after the recent steady stream of workman through this place, there's not much left in the piggy!

{I will be adding pics here of latest finds...stay tuned!}