Vespa Geek

It’s been months since I’ve worked on the little gal, much less taken her out for a spin, so I think it’s time to finally just buckle down and buy the CDI kit. I can’t seem to get this thing running with any degree of consistency with the stock ignition, so I’m at my wit’s [...]

So, in my last post, I mentioned that I was about to remove the flywheel for the purpose of replacing the condenser. Well, it’s turned out not so well. The circlip that is described in the Haynes manual as being on the shaft as a way to sort of self-extract the flywheel from the tapered [...]

So, I drove down to Motorsport this morning, intending to get a new condenser and points for the Vespa, and maybe a new carb. I’m at my wit’s end at this point, and I’m planning to just start replacing things in order of likelihood of being the root cause of the problem, cost, and ease [...]

Veeeery interesting. I remembered the other day when I adjusted the points gap and checked the timing that I replaced the spark plug on the VBB at the same time that I made the gap adjustment. The gap was off, by the way. I think it was well over .050mm, and should be (according to [...]

I was concerned that this last fix to the Vespa would leave me with nothing really to blog about if there was nothing mechanically wrong with it. Well, I can truly say that this little beastie is continuing in it’s endeavor to supply me with things to write about.
I had thought the points gap adjustment [...]

I swear, you would think I’d learn. Close the fuel petcock when you park the scooter, idiot… but I leave it open all the time. I didn’t ride it for nearly a week, and when I took it to work the day before yesterday, it kicked over just fine, but partway through the ride in, [...]

With the new dampener in the front end, the scooter rides like butter now. Love it.

I decided to replace the front dampener on the bike because there was a significant amount of slop in the travel of the front end, at least in part caused by the obviously destroyed rubber bushing in the lower hoop of the shock.
Below are the steps I followed to get the front shock/dampener off the [...]

Having never ridden another old Vespa, I have no idea how the front end on these should behave. All I know is that mine feels very soft, as though the spring is too soft or has worn out. I need to check out some other scooters somehow and see what they should feel like. I [...]

Turns out, it was a fuel problem, but not the 2T oil “glob” that I thought it might be. Turns out, the gas tank, after having sat empty for a month in transit had some surface rust in it that broke free and clogged up the fuel filter in the tank that is part of [...]