Dismanteling

I had a meeting canceled this morning and the sun was shining; so I took this as a sign that I should spend a couple of hours on the Vespa.
I'd been reading (that reminds me I really need to get 2 workshop manuals - one for in the workshop and one for in bed - the wife complains about the smell of oil) about the potential troubles of removing a corroded hinge-pin from the engine/frame mounting - and this was making me toss and turn at night. So I needed to check this out.
Somewhere along the line, I've made up my mind to resurrect this scooter. Im not sure when this happened and I haven't admitted this yet to the family. I am sure this is how an affair would feel; it all starts off as a bit of a laugh, and before you know it you are smitten and find yourself in bed reading mucky publications.
To be fair to myself - i have only really committed so far to seeing if I can rebuild the frame. This means getting the scooter dismantled, and the frame shot-blast (or chemically dipped). If I find its all too much for me, then I shall wash my hands of it and bung the left over bits on ebay.

I set my sights on getting the 3 big lumps out by mid morning; fuel/oil tanks (this was easy, I'd done it before), the engine/transmission/suspension unit, and the front steering column/suspension/wheel assembly. I want to try and keep as much of the bits together as possible for the time being to minimise the chances of loosing anything or feeling overwhelmed by stuff to do, and Vespa being Vespa is ingenious in the way it keeps all these sub-assemblies so self-contained.
My sleepless nights worrying about how I would drill a 15mm dia x 250mm long hinge bolt out (as described in the Haynes manual) if it was corroded to the point that the rubbers had sheered, were a complete waste of time. The bolt unscrewed and tapped out like a dream. I would like to shake the hand of the man who put a nice coat of copperslip on the bolt when he last replaced it (and then I'd knee him in the nuts for not spraying Waxoyl inside the chassis when he had the chance). As seen in the previous blog posting, the engine unit is a dream. it was out within the hour.
The steering column wasnt too bad to get out - and judging by the state of the C-Spanner locking nut, its been out before (using the same method as i used in the absence of a C-Spanner - hammer and drift). My main concern here was trying to study how all those cables and wires were laid out so that I can re-assemble with ease. I took loads of photos trying to capture how this wire went in here and that cable came out there.
So there I was with 3 large lumps and a tatty frame with wires and cables coming out of each end. Im committed now