Scooters are fun and I've always had a thing for old Vespas. This popped up about 8 minutes from my house and, for better or worse, it's mine now.
The gentleman I bought it from had owned it since June 1981 when it was exactly 2 years old. He was clearly very in love with this bike. I would have to assume he has put the majority of the 3,800+ miles it has on it. He had a stroke at some point and didn't communicate very well but when I went over to look at it he pointed at a few things, hopped on, kicked it over and proceeded to to just rip it down the street. It was pretty awesome. They told me they had just had it to a shop who looked it all over and aside from a leak at the oil tank it was all good. I pulled of the engine side cowl and inspected in there but never pulled the battery side because, like, what is there to find in there? Foreshadowing... I gave them my price which was well below asking and they said they couldn't do it.
In the meantime I was talking with a buddy about it who has a similar one sitting around but is more of a project. The little couple came back to me saying they'd like to make a deal and my wife and I decided I should go with this one because I had no interest in an immediate project... Foreshadowing...
My first minor alarm bell was as I was pulling out of their driveway, I tried to honk the horn to say goodbye and nothing happened. Ok. Horn no worky. It ran awesome on the ride home though and I was a happy boy.
I get home and the fuel shut off does absolutely nothing. The little black handle just spins on the rod that goes to the petcock or whatever the Vespa world calls it. I did ask the guy about it before I left and he just sort of waved me off while nodding his head. I texted his wife asking how he got it to shut off and her response was that he never has.
Interesting.
I think it was the next morning when I pulled the left cowl and...
Just soak all that in for a minute. Speaker wire battery strap. Misc. solid core wire and fittings cobbled into the positive battery cable and fuse delete. Nice. I remedied the battery connection first off. I'll get to the fuse soon.
I then proceeded to find a good wiring diagram for this sucker and did extensive testing that lead me to find that the rectifier was bad. Aside from the obvious hackery on the positive cable, the wiring is actually pretty sound, all told. The coil wire was a bit past it's prime though.
I whipped up a new one of those.
Turns out the "double yellow" stator/rectifier combo was only used for a couple years so there are no direct OEM replacements available. I found an aftermarket unit from a scooter place in GA that was said to work and put that on order along with other various things to include an actual rubber battery strap.
The aftermarket rectifier shows up, I wire it per the instructions and... it's charging and all accessories work. Hurray! Strangely, it seems like the brake light is stuck on. I figure the switch for the rear brake must be caked up and stuck.
Nope. Super clean. Did some poking and testing with the multimeter and was getting some really strange readings. Turns out, the back light was wired incorrectly. Goodness.
I take it up and down the street and then once I get to the garage, it shuts off and won't restart. Hm. I poke around for about 10 minutes trying to figure out why, kick it over and it starts and runs for a few seconds but nothing more.
The next morning it starts up and runs like nothing happened. Hm. I do some more poking throughout the day and can't land on what the issue is. I take it for another test ride around the neighborhood and, again, after about 5 minutes, it shuts off and won't restart. This time down at the bottom of our street. Yay. I came to the conclusion that it must be the condenser going bad, getting hot, etc. so I get a new set of points and a condenser ordered along with the tools needed to pull the flywheel.
The tool showed up with gacked threads so I had to chop about 1/3 of them off and finesse the remaining threads to work.
Once the flywheel was off, I was greeted by a super clean stator and case. In many ways this thing is hacked up but in others, it's really nice.
The points were pretty burned up which, at least to me, helped to indicate a tired condenser. Note how you have the solder the condenser to the points and stator. Strange. It's not easy with it situated on the bike but I got it done.
I'm actually looking at this picture now wondering if I need to somehow protect the stator wire coming into the condenser better where the sheathing is missing.
Anyway, I got it all back together and... it wouldn't start. I checked for spark. Yep. Strong and blue. The plug was wet so there was definitely gas and we definitely have compression. What gives? This was last night. I had to walk away.
I got back at it this morning, continued poking around and could find nothing wrong but it again wouldn't start. I pulled the plug, checked spark again and it all seemed right. With the plug out I kicked it over a number of times thinking maybe it was flooding. Put the plug back in and after a couple kicks it fired right off. Shut it off, kicked it over and it fired again. Then this afternoon I had some time and took it for a nice 10 minute ride with no issues.
So. It *seems* the electrical system is now set and I've got to get that fuel shut off fixed.
That catches us up. I did not want, nor did I need another project but here we are! Carlo is now part of the fam and he'll continue to improve.
The moon hubcap, cowl bars/foot rest and front luggage carrier have been removed. I don't anticipate the hubcap or footrest going back on but I'll likely put the front luggage rack back for the track to help move stuff around.
