Well, since I've been clogging up my car thread with the Vespa stuff for a while I thought it best to stick it all in here.
The interest in scooters started when my older brother turned 18 about 9 years ago and bought a post 2000 model PX in dark green with a few chrome trimmings, it was sweet, when I turned of age to ride I couldn't afford a Vespa so had to make do with a crusty 20 year old MTX125 before moving onto a pretty shabby Speedfight 100. Circa 2009-2010 I was riding around Lincoln, probably just to get some two stroke oil from D&J's when I noticed a hoard of scooters I don't mean like 4 or 5 I mean like more than a hundred. I had to know what was going on so attempted to catch up and follow them about, I must have stood out like a sore thumb amongst them on a plastic ped. Ever since that day I've wanted to own one for myself. The noise, smell and sound was immense.
As always sensible parents tell you to get a drivers license so as soon as I could afford to drive of course that came first. I ended up having a string of classic British cars with VW's thrown in for good measure (Not low on bags with stupid wheels and tyres) I spent as much time as I could learning how to turn a wrench on my mums driveway out in the rain, I'm still far from a professional, I decided that I needed my own space and moved all my things so I wasn't clogging up my parents drive and garage any more or making the neighbourhood look like a scrap yard (I wasn't that bad but you get the idea)
One day back in early 2014(?) my brother came over for dinner and we were browsing eBay as you do, up pops a bare frame with a few bits and bobs that has a number plate I couldn't let pass, my initials! A short while later we found ourselves out in the cold January rain, warming up my Triumph Toledo and removing the front seat so we could get the Vespa in the car. He sat behind me as if he was being chauffeured which must have looked odd to any people we passed who were glimpsing at a classic car, I imagine the sight shortly after when we returned up the road was even weirder to those who peered in the window to see a bike in there. Unfortunately I don't have a picture of the hilarity or of us squeezing a Vespa into the passenger compartment of a tiny old car I really wish I did, I'll bet the fella I bought the scooter off will never forget us.
Anyway, onto the scooter. Here is a picture of what I had just bought.
A jigsaw puzzle, I'd never had one myself to look over in person so didn't really know what I would need in total. A small list was formulated of the most important parts and some buying commenced.
An engine came up in Cambridgeshire and I had to have it, the trusty old Triumph fired up again and took a different brother and I on our way. We got there no issues, we got most of the way back no issues. Stopped off at my other halves house as a rest, came back out to find the car had done a wee, bother, radiator popped. I called a mate who brought an egg, some rad-weld, water and a rope. We did everything we could but that didn't really work so ended up towing the car about 5 miles home. Thus began the start of a never ending battle of fixing the car meaning I kind of didn't get round to actually starting the Vespa for another year and a half.
December 2015
I had a large pile of bits clogging up my room and garage so I decided to do a basic paintjob in a reasonable colour and start piecing everything together.
At this point I was starting to realise just how many odds and sods I'd need to get the thing on the road, it was never ending, my poor nan must have been really annoyed with new parcels turning up day after day for months (my postage situation was complex so I just decided to get it sent to her house, much easier, gave her something to do though bless her and it meant I had many reasons to go round and see her)
After a while I had something that resembled a near completed bike. I applied the stickers of my favourite racer Guy Martin, who else.
Because the bike is a P150X, I couldn't legally ride it so had to have it re-registered, a 125 top end was bought and fitted by the local shop, nothing I couldn't do but it meant I had a receipt to send to the DVLA. Here it was back in April this year when I took it there and the waiting game began on whether they would accept it, engine sizes normally go up rather than down, I thought they might not believe me.
Now all I had to do was get it running, a new carb was ordered with the appropriate upsized jets to go with the enlarged exhaust and drilled air filter mods I'd done. I wanted it to run rich with the new cylinder as well.
A little bit of googling and fettling later...
I had a bike that started but the electrics were haywire which was odd as I'd followed the wiring diagram to the letter and had replaced so much already, turns out the only things I hadn't replaced needed doing too.
I had earthing issues here, there and everywhere. It was at this point that I also decided that I may as well replace the stator plate as the wires had seen better days and were barely sticking our of the engine casing, as advised by other scooterists I can just resolder new wires onto the old stator in the future.
I kicked her over and everything worked as it should bar the indicators... GAH! I decided to take them off as they aren't needed on bikes of this age, though I'd rather have them so I'll sort them in the future too.
One of the things I really wanted to fit now was starting to cause me some issues, I bought an electronic dash (SIP GAUGE/KOSO CLOCKS) it was doing a funny little dance instead of staying on solidly, turned out to be that I never had a resistive spark plug, who'd have known since it wasn't advised and I'd fitted the original spec one for the bike. All was well.
Now it was time to start adjusting the brakes, gears and fitting the MOT spec things and book it in, MOT day came, I dropped it off and went home to get some sleep (work nights) I was awoken at about half 11 to a phone call.
Tester dude : Hey, is this Jack?
Me : Hey, yep that's me.
Tester dude : Erm, I'm having an issue doing the MOT on your bike. There's no frame number.
Me : err, ok, I'll be there soon.
I wasn't too sure what he meant and was sure it was stamped into the frame so I walked for an hour to get there, it turned out that with all the excitement of getting the scooter sorted I'd forgotten to attach the frame plate to it's location, bummer, did I have it on me? Nope, did I have the V5 on me? Nope. That's another 2 hours walking back to my garage to root around and then back to the bike shop. Luckily for me the posty had delivered my newly registered 125cc V5 a day earlier so I knew I had it around, but where as I'd packed everything up for a house move and the other half and I had been moving things backwards and forwards.
Anyway, I got there, dropped it off and he said he couldn't do the MOT right there and then as he was working on another bike, which is fair enough my fault for missing my own time slot. I went home and awaited a phone call for a pass/fail.
I get a phone call, it failed because the brake cable had snapped on the testing equipment... curse word, I told him I can sort it as I have a spare, I walk to my garage, pick up the spare cable inner and walk an hour to the shop. By now I was nackered, sweaty and feeling quite odd on the sugar filled high from the drinks I'd consumed to keep me awake, he shows me what was broken. Cable outer.... I was so peeved with myself as only an hour earlier I had the spare outer in my hand and elected to leave it in the garage and only take the two spare inners. Rookie mistake. At this point I was ready to throw in the towel it was half 4 and I had work in 5 hours time.
I went and sat for a bit before deciding that another MOT wouldn't be available to me for another 2 weeks, I wanted it done, I should have called a taxi at this point but I'm tight. Que the eye of the tiger, I walked for another two hours there and back, the guy had promised to stay late as I'd been back and forward all day and he could see I wanted it done so bad. He's a hero! I got there, got it MOT'd with 78% on brake efficiency, by the skin on my teeth.
I taxed it there and then, started it up and felt like crying, two years and a scooter that really didn't want to be used when its time came up.
What did I do to celebrate? Go to work until 6am the following morning. Boy my legs ached the following day!
The interest in scooters started when my older brother turned 18 about 9 years ago and bought a post 2000 model PX in dark green with a few chrome trimmings, it was sweet, when I turned of age to ride I couldn't afford a Vespa so had to make do with a crusty 20 year old MTX125 before moving onto a pretty shabby Speedfight 100. Circa 2009-2010 I was riding around Lincoln, probably just to get some two stroke oil from D&J's when I noticed a hoard of scooters I don't mean like 4 or 5 I mean like more than a hundred. I had to know what was going on so attempted to catch up and follow them about, I must have stood out like a sore thumb amongst them on a plastic ped. Ever since that day I've wanted to own one for myself. The noise, smell and sound was immense.
As always sensible parents tell you to get a drivers license so as soon as I could afford to drive of course that came first. I ended up having a string of classic British cars with VW's thrown in for good measure (Not low on bags with stupid wheels and tyres) I spent as much time as I could learning how to turn a wrench on my mums driveway out in the rain, I'm still far from a professional, I decided that I needed my own space and moved all my things so I wasn't clogging up my parents drive and garage any more or making the neighbourhood look like a scrap yard (I wasn't that bad but you get the idea)
One day back in early 2014(?) my brother came over for dinner and we were browsing eBay as you do, up pops a bare frame with a few bits and bobs that has a number plate I couldn't let pass, my initials! A short while later we found ourselves out in the cold January rain, warming up my Triumph Toledo and removing the front seat so we could get the Vespa in the car. He sat behind me as if he was being chauffeured which must have looked odd to any people we passed who were glimpsing at a classic car, I imagine the sight shortly after when we returned up the road was even weirder to those who peered in the window to see a bike in there. Unfortunately I don't have a picture of the hilarity or of us squeezing a Vespa into the passenger compartment of a tiny old car I really wish I did, I'll bet the fella I bought the scooter off will never forget us.
Anyway, onto the scooter. Here is a picture of what I had just bought.
A jigsaw puzzle, I'd never had one myself to look over in person so didn't really know what I would need in total. A small list was formulated of the most important parts and some buying commenced.
An engine came up in Cambridgeshire and I had to have it, the trusty old Triumph fired up again and took a different brother and I on our way. We got there no issues, we got most of the way back no issues. Stopped off at my other halves house as a rest, came back out to find the car had done a wee, bother, radiator popped. I called a mate who brought an egg, some rad-weld, water and a rope. We did everything we could but that didn't really work so ended up towing the car about 5 miles home. Thus began the start of a never ending battle of fixing the car meaning I kind of didn't get round to actually starting the Vespa for another year and a half.
December 2015
I had a large pile of bits clogging up my room and garage so I decided to do a basic paintjob in a reasonable colour and start piecing everything together.
At this point I was starting to realise just how many odds and sods I'd need to get the thing on the road, it was never ending, my poor nan must have been really annoyed with new parcels turning up day after day for months (my postage situation was complex so I just decided to get it sent to her house, much easier, gave her something to do though bless her and it meant I had many reasons to go round and see her)
After a while I had something that resembled a near completed bike. I applied the stickers of my favourite racer Guy Martin, who else.
Because the bike is a P150X, I couldn't legally ride it so had to have it re-registered, a 125 top end was bought and fitted by the local shop, nothing I couldn't do but it meant I had a receipt to send to the DVLA. Here it was back in April this year when I took it there and the waiting game began on whether they would accept it, engine sizes normally go up rather than down, I thought they might not believe me.
Now all I had to do was get it running, a new carb was ordered with the appropriate upsized jets to go with the enlarged exhaust and drilled air filter mods I'd done. I wanted it to run rich with the new cylinder as well.
A little bit of googling and fettling later...
I had a bike that started but the electrics were haywire which was odd as I'd followed the wiring diagram to the letter and had replaced so much already, turns out the only things I hadn't replaced needed doing too.
I had earthing issues here, there and everywhere. It was at this point that I also decided that I may as well replace the stator plate as the wires had seen better days and were barely sticking our of the engine casing, as advised by other scooterists I can just resolder new wires onto the old stator in the future.
I kicked her over and everything worked as it should bar the indicators... GAH! I decided to take them off as they aren't needed on bikes of this age, though I'd rather have them so I'll sort them in the future too.
One of the things I really wanted to fit now was starting to cause me some issues, I bought an electronic dash (SIP GAUGE/KOSO CLOCKS) it was doing a funny little dance instead of staying on solidly, turned out to be that I never had a resistive spark plug, who'd have known since it wasn't advised and I'd fitted the original spec one for the bike. All was well.
Now it was time to start adjusting the brakes, gears and fitting the MOT spec things and book it in, MOT day came, I dropped it off and went home to get some sleep (work nights) I was awoken at about half 11 to a phone call.
Tester dude : Hey, is this Jack?
Me : Hey, yep that's me.
Tester dude : Erm, I'm having an issue doing the MOT on your bike. There's no frame number.
Me : err, ok, I'll be there soon.
I wasn't too sure what he meant and was sure it was stamped into the frame so I walked for an hour to get there, it turned out that with all the excitement of getting the scooter sorted I'd forgotten to attach the frame plate to it's location, bummer, did I have it on me? Nope, did I have the V5 on me? Nope. That's another 2 hours walking back to my garage to root around and then back to the bike shop. Luckily for me the posty had delivered my newly registered 125cc V5 a day earlier so I knew I had it around, but where as I'd packed everything up for a house move and the other half and I had been moving things backwards and forwards.
Anyway, I got there, dropped it off and he said he couldn't do the MOT right there and then as he was working on another bike, which is fair enough my fault for missing my own time slot. I went home and awaited a phone call for a pass/fail.
I get a phone call, it failed because the brake cable had snapped on the testing equipment... curse word, I told him I can sort it as I have a spare, I walk to my garage, pick up the spare cable inner and walk an hour to the shop. By now I was nackered, sweaty and feeling quite odd on the sugar filled high from the drinks I'd consumed to keep me awake, he shows me what was broken. Cable outer.... I was so peeved with myself as only an hour earlier I had the spare outer in my hand and elected to leave it in the garage and only take the two spare inners. Rookie mistake. At this point I was ready to throw in the towel it was half 4 and I had work in 5 hours time.
I went and sat for a bit before deciding that another MOT wouldn't be available to me for another 2 weeks, I wanted it done, I should have called a taxi at this point but I'm tight. Que the eye of the tiger, I walked for another two hours there and back, the guy had promised to stay late as I'd been back and forward all day and he could see I wanted it done so bad. He's a hero! I got there, got it MOT'd with 78% on brake efficiency, by the skin on my teeth.
I taxed it there and then, started it up and felt like crying, two years and a scooter that really didn't want to be used when its time came up.
What did I do to celebrate? Go to work until 6am the following morning. Boy my legs ached the following day!