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How many times have I said "I'm back!"?

I seem to limp on with this project with little spurts of energy and enthusiasm every 6 months or so, and each time I do manage to get a bit of work done on the trike, I announce that "this is it!"

For this very reason, I've not mentioned anything about progress for a few weeks - just to see if its just another flash-in-the-pan of energy.

In truth, I have never lost the enthusiasm for this project.... I just seem to never have enough time.  However, the last couple of weeks have somehow gifted me some 'free' weekends (I say "free" because they come at the cost of my wife now moaning at me for being 'selfish'!  I agree with her - I am being proactively selfish, and if she is going to moan at me anyway, then the best place for me is in the garage!)

A few weeks ago Hugh came over to have a look at how things were progressing.  Over a cup of tea we debated the best position and layout for the foot pedals - I have decided to put the throttle on the handlebars, clutch on the left foot, rear brake on the the right foot, and front brake up with the throttle (there are many options, but this one felt best for me)

I desperately want to keep this machine as bare as possible, so the idea of foot rests and pegs doesn't appeal to me, even if they are practical, safe and comfortable (I am sure I will eat my words eventually, but the time being - its going to stay as simple as possible) 

Rightly or wrongly, I am utilising the original Reliant Robin foot pedals - I figured that I didn't need to reinvent the leverage ratios, and with a bit of bending and cutting & shutting, they would be perfectly acceptable to get me started.  To keep things tidy, I am keeping all the mechanics inboard of the frame..... but I do wonder if there will be a problem with some of it hanging low - is that an MOT/DVLA issue?  I am trying to keep everything above sump level.... but even so, thats pretty low!

Much to the horror of proper engineers (including TVOR) I am doing very little 'design' on this trike - I have loads of thumbnail sketches to facilitate my thinking of options, but I rarely use a measure, or make a prototype/cardboard mock up. Everything is made up on the go.  The upside to this approach is that I keep my focus on what 'feels' right, the downside is that I have had to throw away a fair amount of metal that I've welded up before realising that the idea wont work in practice - The bearing pins for the pedals is a case in point - that was a lot of wasted filing energy getting those original 1/4"discs made up, but hey ho! it was good exercise for me, and anyway I rather like the process of creating and making complicated brackets - its a shame people wont get to see the complexity of my design to hold the brake cylinder in place!

The original vehicle - Reliant Rialto GLS - was fitted with a duel master brake cylinder that mounts on an incline - its big, ugly and awkward.  So I bought a much simpler single cylinder that was advertised on ebay as a 'Reliant Brake/Clutch' cylinder.  I have fitted it, and yet have no idea if its suitable for the job.  I only need it to brake the 2 rear wheels, so I am sure it will be fine (*famous last words, as he ploughs helplessly across the busy crossroads junction*).  I have read some interesting articles about how difficult it can be to get the brakes right on a trike (so many variable to mess with), so I am preparing myself to have to experiment..... but I cant experiment until I have some practical data to work with.... so lets get it running and see what we've got.

The handbrake was another worry that I mulled over for a long time.  I wanted it to be unobtrusive, and rather fancied it at 90 degrees to the original with straight pull-rods to the rear brakes, but it was Hugh who helped me think this though and I have finally opted for using the original device on a newly make platform with very short cables - it doesn't look too bad and hopefully relatively easy to operate (i wont know until I have serviced the brakes, and even then I will need to get the cable professionally made up)

As much as I am loving doing this, I am aware that my original vision (of 'clean and simple') is slowly being compromised as I have to bolt on necessary accessories (pedals, brake handles, fuel tank, battery, electrics etc) - I have come to realise that the designers who are the real genius', are not those who make the sweeping line sketches of concepts, but those who can incorporate all the necessary mundane stuff with understated simplicity.

Next step - service the brakes, make some handlebars, think about fuel-tank and battery.  Once I have most of the bracketry tacked in the right place, I can strip the engine out, roll the frame over and weld up proper

By the way - if you are looking for special or odd sized nuts and bolts, in any manner of material, then I thoroughly recommend E.C. Pitcher in Walsall.  Thats were I got my shoulder screws for the pedal pivots

A few of my favourite photos

For me, these summarise my weekend.....

A massive thank-you for the skills, enthusiasm, support and fun, to Hugh, Jo and TVOR - i am now indebted to you and obliged to finish the project :-)

Hugh, Tim, Jo (photo by TVOR)

She Rolls!

Can you imagine how exciting it is to see your idea come to life as a real rolling chassis?
This engine, rear axel and front forks have all been bolted to my kitchen worktop jig for more than 5 years! gathering dust in my garage and buried under other projects.  And it was quite a strange feeling when we all finally agreed that she was tacked/welded together enough to release her from the jig.

With the aid of Jo's overhead lifting gear, she rose like a phoenix as one solid and complete vehicle.  It was a momentous occasion.  And then, there she was.... on her own 3 wheels.  And I could push her back and forth.
We all took turns to sit on the seat (balanced on a plank of wood) to make "vroom vroom" noises

Note - those pipes sticking out the back of the frame - they're all going to be chopped right back - I want that diff very exposed!

It was getting late in the day, and we had lots of tidying up to do yet, so there wasn't much time for self congratulations, and I quickly stripped everything off the frame so that Jo could (at his leisure over the next week or so) weld up the bits that we couldn't get to while the engine was in place.

For interest sake, the frame weighs 36 kilos (it will change a bit as i cut the tube ends off and add pedal brakets etc

We set about tidying jo's workshop up.  I was going to throw the kitchen top jig away, but Hugh suggested keeping it...... just in case he fancied making a trike too!  And who wouldn't? it is a beautiful looking thing :-)

Saw, Bend, Grind, Weld

The whole process was much slower than I had expected.  
After we had worked out and perfected our bending and fishmouth techniques, I was hoping it was going to be a simple case of "just do it!"   But it turned out that every step of the way was just as tricky as the step before.  We seemed to keep kidding ourselves that "once we've done this bit, it'll be easy!"
Nothing was 'easy', but we did have an increasing skill to sort out each problem, and I did find it increasingly more exciting to see the whole thing starting to take shape (albeit slowly)

This whole weekend was supposed to be as much a pleasure as it was to build a trike frame - and it was - but I was always slightly pressured by the ever decreasing time we had available.  I certainly didn't want to be leaving Jo on sunday evening with a half-finished frame on his bench that he couldn't move out of his way ready for work on monday morning.  And so I did feel a slight growing tension on sunday to get this thing as a rolling chassis - and yet at the same time I wanted to enjoy the chatting and cups of tea and general flopping around that you do when you are relaxed.
Jo seemed relaxed about it all, and so I tried to also.

"Good Enough"

We had previously agreed that our manta for the weekend was "Its Good Enough"
We all suffer from procrastination and wanting to do our best, and this is why our projects have been taking so long to progress.  But with some friendly nudging and jibing, we seemed to make progress simply by reminding each other now and then, "Its good enough" and "Just do it"

Fish Mouths

One of the things that i had been steeling myself for (over the past 6 years!) was the tremendous effort I was going to have to make in creating the tube joints and interfaces.  With limited facilities at home I was preparing myself for cutting and filing each tube joint by hand.  Actually, I find great pleasure in using hand tools, and I'm not bad at it either.... but man, its a slow job.
Added to this the fact that I was planning to weld this frame with my TIG welder which requires much finer fitting tolerances, I imagined that shaping the frame was going to be a log slog.

However, now down in Jo's forge with space, tools, and skills on tap, I was able to re-evaluate this whole process.
Firstly, I decided to ask Jo to do the welding for me.  He uses MIG welding (and he is good at it) - some custom bike builders scorn MIG welding as not being strong or neat enough for bike frames, but as my tubes are larger than most and my design is heavier than usual, we decided that a well executed MIG weld would be perfectly acceptable for my frame - and with Jo doing it, he would be fast, accurate and get a proper penetration.
Secondly, As MIG welding can be a little more forgiving on the fitting tolerances of the tubes (particularly heavy ones like mine) I didn't need to be so fussy about the shaping of the tube interfaces - the fishmouths.

    

There are many ways to design and make a fishmouth in a tube - including hand filing/fitting, drilling with a hole cutter, and using software to print out a cutting template.  Jo introduced me to a very simple method of 2 single straight cuts on a table saw.  There is a great explanation of this process (and much more tube fabrication information besides) on this site.  With a table saw and a hand grinder we were able to create perfectly acceptable fishmouths quickly and easily

Another important decision we made was to not try and make 2 bends in a single piece of tube - so that we wouldn't be faced with having to write off a perfectly accurate bend because we'd cocked up the second or third.  Instead we simple butt welded the single bend sections together (with the use of a tight fitting box-section stub for alignment).  This made it so much easier in the design/assembly/tacking process as we were able to rotate the bends relative to each other to create the perfect shape - and consequently reproduce the exact mirror assembly for the other side of the bike.  With Jo's expert welding on my thick tubes, we all agreed there would be no worries about the strength and integrity of the frame

Subsequent bends

After a little bit of research, it was apparent that packing sand tightly into a tube would support the tube walls during bending.  Some people use heat in the process, and some people warn against using heat.
We decided to do ours cold.
We welded an architectural steel ball into the end of the tube, inverted the tube and filled it with silver sand.  The trick in doing this is to pack the sand down as tightly as possible (we rammed, hammered and tamped with vigour).  Once completely full, we hammered another architectural ball into the open end and welded it in place.
Now our tube was ready to bend.

             

The process worked like a dream!  With a hydraulic pipe bender like this, you dont need heat.  And although I am sure that flushing the sand through with water would certainly pack the sand tighter, we found that we could hammer the sand down perfectly tight enough to give us minimal flattening during bending. 

First bend

3 men for 3 days equals a lot of manpower, thinking capacity, labour and enthusiasm (even more so when you add a good contribution from TVOR who popped in on a couple of days for moral support and sensible suggestions)
With the component parts all lined up and fixed in place we set about doing a first bend on the chassis main rail.  Jo's hydraulic bender made my own 16 tonne bender look like a childs toy.  We made a quick adapter to enable us to use my filed out die to fit his press..... and we gave it a go.

Disaster.  Even with Jo's superior mandrels, the device wasn't man enough to hold the tube taught enough to avoid flattening the tube on the bend :-(  It was getting late in the day (of our first day) and this kink in the tube, kinked our enthusiasm until Jo teased us with an idea;
"I've heard of a technique for bending tube using sand.  I've never done it myself, but I've heard about it.  I've got some sand - we could try it!"
And with that we agreed to call it a day and return tomorrow with excitement to try an experiment.

That night in bed, on my iphone, I looked for some evidence that tube could indeed be bent smoothly with the aid of sand.  And sure enough, there is a technique.... though details do seem to vary from person to person

  

We've got this far before...

But this time it's so much more pleasurable. This time I'm working on a proper work bench with lots of space.
Lining up and fixing down still took a good couple of hours

Parts all ready for assembly

There was no way I was going to get this done in my pokey little garage so we hired a van, threw all my trike bits in, and Hugh's bike too, and took it down to Jo's workshop

Its ironic that to create leisure time seems to be harder work that actually doing work!  It would certainly be an easier route to keep going to the office, doing email, and moaning that there isn't enough time for leisure activities.
It seems to require a huge amount of effort to break the pattern, and get some leisure time started.
One week ago, I was of the mood that was might easily have made me back out of our plan to work on our project bikes.  Could I really afford the time off work?  Can I really afford the money that this is going to cost me?  How on earth am I going to get all my bike parts down to Jo's forge where we planned to spend 4 days of intense metal bashing and welding.  Shouldn't I be helping my daughter open her shop?  etc etc

However, making the opportunity to have fun appears to be a bit like being a competitor in one of those strong man competitions where you have to pull a double decker bus with your bear hands.  It is almost impossible to get it started, and is only with incredible effort and strain that things start to move... and once they are moving, it gets easier... maybe to the point that actually, it's rolling on its own!

We havent started anything yet, but I am already very proud of myself for just believing that we can!

Another restart.. again.

Crivens!  Have I really let this original project slip so much??
I started this blog on November 8th 2006... over 6 years ago!  At the time I thought I was going to build a Trike within a year for less than a grand...... How nieve can a man be?
Reading back on some of my older posts, it looked like I made a good start - sourced lots of the parts, and prepared to create a rather neat looking frame..... but somehow, things seem to have got in the way and despite numerous blog posts stating "A new start", or "We're back", or "This time I really, really will finish this - promise!", I just haven't made any real progress beyond laying the parts out to look like a trike with an invisible frame.
I'm not proud of my poor performance, but in my defence, I have in the interim years rebuilt a Vespa scooter (and riden it to Italy and South of France), nearly completed the resurrection of a 1958 French Manurhin scooter, and bought myself a Royal Enfield 500 efi electra Bullet.
However, the Trike has never been totally forgotten - I still love the idea of creating my own machine, and much to my astonishment I am about to make a major step forward with this project.

For the past few years, around about october, I've taken off for a long weekend with a couple of friends, Hugh and Jo - the general idea is to do something fun and stay in a B&B so we can take the opportunity to have 'one more beer' than we might otherwise have if we were driving.  We didn't get the chance to do it last october, and we missed it, and so it was while sitting over a beer (only one this time, as we were driving) that we came up with the brilliant idea of taking a long weekend of not only having fun, but also helping each other make some progress with our respective dust-gathering projects...... and wouldn't be fun if we could actually get them on the road ..... and ride them to a rock festival? ;-)  We put a date in our diaries there and then.  And that date has finally crept up on us!

A slightly new direction

So the rebuild is complete, the test runs are successful, and the story comes to an end......... well, not quite!

When my Vespa arrived in its sorry state several months ago, I decided to document its resurrection via this blog - A blog that was initially set up to record the creation of a Trike.  I guess the flavour of this blog has always been about nuts and bolts, solving problems and creating stuff, blood, sweat & tears and good old fashioned hand skills.  With this in mind, I'm hoping that maybe I will get back soon to continuing the Trike project and writing about it here.

But now that the Vespa is pretty well complete I'm not sure that its story should continue here.  The story about the Vespa now is not so much about its revival, but more about its travels - and so a new blog is born. www.2vespas2italy.blogspot.com
With only a couple of hundred miles of Vespa riding experience, and fueled by mid-life angst I appear to have got myself into an enthusiastic commitment to ride, with a friend (another Vespa virgin) our scooters from England to the Italian riviera.

Heroic or foolish?  Interesting or boring? Scotty and I are going to blog about our adventure - its only a 2 week trip, and we dont go for several weeks yet - however, the 'journey' starts now

www.2vespas2italy.blogspot.com

My first Epic Journey

Im pretty confident now that my scooter works.  And I very 'grateful' that I appear to have an engine/electrical/carburetor setup that is reliable and consistent - I always worry about those sort of intangible 'physics' aspects of an engine.  I hate spluttering engines or erratic idling because they always seem to be difficult problems to trace; unlike a snapped clutch cable that is obvious and fixable. 

And so after a few local runs to prove that she runs reliably, I needed a journey to test durability and endurance (of me AND the machine).  I'd been planning for a while to go down to see mum and dad on Sunday (110 miles away), and as the day approached I started to wonder if I could go by Vespa.  The weather in the proceeding week was pretty rubbish and i was paying close attention to the forecast for the weekend.  Come Saturday night I still wasn't decided - the wind and rain was on and off all the time.  It was literally a last minute decision as I got dressed on Sunday morning and looked out of the window.... sky was grey but dry, wind was blowy, but not harsh..... i decided to put on my thermal vest.

I was on the road by about 8.30am and i felt good.  In my mind I had about 4 mental milestones that plotted my route.  I'd checked google maps earlier for a walking route (id figured this would be most direct and would avoid motorways) - as it turns out the exact mileage this way would be 101 miles.  The four stages were, Warwick, Milton Keynes, Dunstable and Welwyn - if i could tick these places off in turn, I would feel like I was making progress.
Unfortunately I didnt make a print of the google map route, and so once past Warwick and into farming country, villages and lanes I quickly became lost.  I had to stop on numerous occasions to check on my phone which villages I should be aiming for.  And when I couldnt get a GPS signal, I had to resort to the inbuilt compass on my phone and simply head south.
The journey went well.  it stayed dry, I felt comfortable on the saddle, and the engine ran without hesitation.  I often became aware that the pressure of my helmet on my cheeks was making my jaw open slightly and my tongue slip between my teeth; if i thought about this too much i could feel a sort of sense of panic come over me - to distract my mind I would sing to myself - which sounded quite nice inside the little cosy world of my helmet.
I stopped for fuel twice - Im not sure of just how much fuel i have when the gauge gets close to showing empty, so rather than find out the hard way, I made sure I kept full (and fuel stops are also a welcome stretch)  Even with the gauge showing empty I appear to only be able to put 5 quid of fuel in the tank - which makes me feel like a rich man when I compare the experience to filling the car for £75.
At one garage the attendant asked about the scooter, and was rather surprised to hear of the distance I was intending to cover that day (his surprise worried me a little - 101 miles? surely thats not such a big deal is it?)  He also went on to tell me of his friend who found a Lambretta in a shed AND of the last time he visited Luton - his stories were a perfect opportunity for me to linger a little longer in his warm shop.
Once out of the Warwickshire farming country and bound for Milton Keynes, I had to face an hour on the A5.  This was both a blessing and a curse.  On the one hand cars and lorries are moving very fast here, but on the other hand when it was duel carriageway, they passed me with a wide birth.  On the one hand whilst it is quite a direct route, it was on the other hand monotonous - at 40mph without the pleasure of Radio 4 to entertain, these long dull roads are VERY long and VERY dull.  I was pleased to enter the metropolis that is Dunstable.
It was in Dunstable that I had my first 'fright'.  I was riding through some road works and was approaching a temporary repair to a channel dug across the road.  I wasnt traveling fast, but I quickly became aware that this was quite a deep trough that I was about to go over.  I reduced my speed (but i dont think I was actually braking as I went over the trough) and as I bounced over the road repair I had a significant wobble.  All was well and I carried on but it was a few moments later when a cold shiver went down my spine as i thought about how that might have turned into a spill.

Dad (aka TVOR) gives the Vespa a once over

From here on I was in familiar country and the Vespa seemed to pick up some spirit and drive like it wanted to get to its destination - The song 'Space oddity' by David Bowie came into my head and I found myself singing inside my personal sound booth "... and I think my spaceship knows which way to go".  I was 3 hours into my journey and I was becoming both; more and more comfortable in the saddle, and more and more mad by the solitude
I arrived finally at Mum and Dads in time for a late lunch.  4.5 hours after I had set off from my home 101 miles away.  I was delighted to see mum and dad, delighted to have achieved this epic journey, but slightly disappointed in my slow performance.

I might not have had a spare clutch cable, but I had smartly packed a toothbrush and clean pair of underpants in my rucksack when I set out that morning - there was no way now that I was going to attempt a return journey on the same day.  And so we enjoyed a lovely afternoon (dad even getting to have a ride on the Vespa up and down the drive) and evening together.  I slept remarkably well that night :-)

I woke early the next day - I needed to get back home in good time for a teleconference meeting.  As I lay in bed slowly waking up, it occurred to me that I was in a rather different situation to the morning before.  Yesterday when I woke up I had a choice.  I had a choice primarily based on the weather conditions as to whether I would travel down to see mum and dad by scooter or by car.  This morning however, I had no choice whatsoever.  Regardless of whatever the weather had in store for me, I had to ride home, and so it was with a little more intrepidation than excitement that I set off that morning.

preparing for the journey home

I was on the road by 8.45.  it was overcast and gloomy, but the little Vespa seemed happy to be buzzing along the country lanes again.  I took the same route home as I did coming.  It was uneventful. The weather was variable; I was grateful for my waterproof over trousers when it drizzled, and I was grateful for my black jacket when it captured a little of the warmth from the sun when he popped his nose out now and then.  The biggest battle was the blustery wind I faced as i came into the Midlands.  This invisible force seemed to want to test me by springing out on me at any moment causing me to lurch across my lane.  It was at times quite stressful both mentally and physically, but easily cured by simply dropping speed down to 25 - 30 mph.
I arrived home just in the nick of time for my teleconference meeting after 5 hours in the saddle - this had indeed been an epic journey for me.  And one I look forward to doing many more times :-)

I love my Vespa.

The first 100 miles

True to form, the chaps from Redditch Shot Blasting were slow with the delivery of my painted wheels BUT they had done a great job when i did eventually get them back (£10/wheel).  They look great once all assembled and refitted to the bike (It was Hugh who taught me about the magic that a nice set of wheels can add to a vehicle)

With the wheels back on the bike the weather was particularly encouraging for a man with a shiney new scooter, and so I had the perfect excuse to take a run out to buy some gloves (that might provide a bit more protection than the snowboard gloves that I'd been wearing up to this point)  I had some Christmas money from mum so was delighted to spend £30 on a pair not too flash, not too stiff, and not too thick.
While I was out and about I thought I would take the opportunity to pop in to GranSport Scooters to show Dan (who had been particularly encouraging for me as a noobie) how the scooter had turned out.  I was slightly embarrassed to go in and say 'do you want to see it' but once again Dan was very gracious with his enthusiasm and kind words.  I felt rather proud of my achievement :-)

So now with a completed bike and an appropriate set of garments, I needed a proper run.  And where else could be a more perfect destination than Hughies! And so it was decided for the following morning.  The weather was dry and crisp (I really dont want to ride in the wet if I can avoid it) So off I set.  It wasnt long before I realised that actually the weather was dry, crisp AND frosty!  If id have foreseen some of the ice patches along the country roads that morning I wouldnt have set off.  However I was now on the roads and heading to Stratford Upon Avon so I simply had to ride with extreme care.

It was a lovely ride and the scooter hopped along beautifully.  It has a lovely buzzing sound, vibrates comfortingly and smells great!  The white smoke pretty well vanishes once warmed up and she doesnt hesitate for a moment either in long open runs or in idling at traffic lights.
Like a bit of an idiot I was under the impression that I had found a comfortable speed of about 60mph (and for a number of days following this run was reporting this to friends who appeared to be impressed with the power of this little machine)  However I have since realised (and only after counting seconds as I rode between road mile markers) that Ive been glancing down at the speedo and reading the KPH scale instead of the MPH scale which on this foreign designed bike is the less obvious scale.  So instead of a comfy cruising speed of what I thought was 60mph - Ive actually been doing 40mph.  I was interested to reflect on just how much I'd fooled myself - I had a completely misguided sense of what these speeds felt like - exposed to the elements, that 40mph FELT like 60mph to me.  Dan tells me that I should be able to get 60mph out of a 200cc engine - but the idea of going 50% faster still positively scares me!  Especially now that I have a new-found awareness of pot-holes - I never saw them when driving the car, but on a scooter with piddly wheel diameters, they look (and feel) like chasms waiting to tip you off at any opportunity

The other interesting fact that arises from being exposed to the elements on a clear and frosty day is that you get extremely cold.  Even with my new proper gloves, i lost all sensation in a few fingers on a number of occasions, and only bought it back by vigorous rubbing during welcome traffic light stops.  What I couldn't do though (without being arrested) was the same for my balls - OMG I froze my balls - now I know what brass monkeys feel like.  That really was quite painful

Hughs house is approximately 35 miles from mine, but it took nearly 2 hours get there.  I'm not entirely sure why I made such a long job of it.  Im certainly being cautious (new rider, reconditioned bike, frosty roads) but I thought it would be quicker than that.  Coffee at Hughs has never been more welcomed.  I was pretty well chilled to the bone by the time i got there but it was a good exercise in understanding what is the appropriate number of layers you need to wear while riding a scooter.  Before leaving Hughs I borrowed (and he can have it back if he wants) an A4 jiffy envelope to fashion a cod-piece from - stuffed down my trousers, it really did make a big difference to the pleasure of the return journey.
All in all - It was a great first proper run.  I love the scooter (and so do others judging by the turning heads), and I love the riding it.  It appears to all be working well, and my rebuild is a success.


The following day, with growing confidence and excitement for my scooter, I leapt at the opportunity to get the Vespa out again - Ukulele practice at a friends house.  It was to be only a short journey, But Horrors!  two miles from my house, the clutch cable snapped!
Can you imagine how much of a freekin pain it is when you are out and about and your clutch cable snaps!  I can see what that tool box is for now - to fill with spares!..... if only I had :-(
I managed to limp home by crashing the gears without a clutch - but i winced every time at the thought of my brand new gear selector mashing its edges off - grrr
It turns out that the nipple had just sheared off the cable at the handle bar end - It was a brand new cable and hadnt even done 100 miles yet!  I was pretty pissed off (and worried that this was to be a fact of life - since this moment I have heard from a number of sources that with a Vespa I'd be wise to always carry a spare clutch cable!)
I think the cause of this snap was me overly tightening the clutch cable adjuster - in an attempt to minimise the 'clunk' that happens each time I changed gear.  However on reflection now, I have concluded that the clutch adjustment will never stop the gear-change 'clunk' - this 'clunk' is the natural noise of a gearbox without synchromesh.  I felt a bit of an idiot, but for a £3.50 cable replacement off ebay, I think it was a cheap and relatively painless lesson to learn

I have since wondered about what i would do if the same thing were to happen it in the middle of the Tuscan hills and I couldnt simply crash the gears home.  I think i could have temporarily bodged a solution to get me to the nearest piaggio dealer (which of course in Italy is never more than 400 yards away)

wheels

Scooter on wooden blocks.
All wheels off.
Rims separated.
Tyres, and tubes removed.
Rims now ready for shot blasting and powder coating.

Theyre pretty rusty! I was quite surprised - though I shouldnt have been, judging by the state of the rest of the bike.  Im guessing that they are salvageable

security

Its only a small job, and one that I'd almost dismissed as unnecessary.
It suddenly occurred to me the other night just how important a role the seat lock might play in slowing down or maybe even dissuading opportunity thieves.
My original seat lock has I think at some stage been drilled out.  Whatever, when I changed the ignition (remember, the original key snapped in it within days of owning the scooter)  I also got a replacement lock barrel for the seat and tool box.
The seat clicks down onto the catch easily enough and i didnt really think it necessary to lock it - is someone really going to want to siphon out a gallon of oily petrol and a pint of two-stroke oil?
However, laying in bed the other night I was fretting about how to prevent hot-wirers (ive been caught like this before with easily accessible electrics when my  '68 Manta-Ray Beach-Buggy was stolen from a pub car park) when I suddenly realised that it is the security of the seat that prevents people from un-clipping the side panels and consequently getting easy access to the engine and electrics.  And so the next day I made half an hour and got that lock sorted!

graphics

I love the winter weather; all frosty and snowy - but this year its been most inconvenient.  Just as I get the scooter on the road, so the roads become way to dicey for me to drive on.  And so I have to make do with finding things to tinker around on in the garage.

I really like the colour of my scooter, I like its clean and simple look and I dont want of lots of chrome fittings on it, but i do feel it needs something to add some detail.  The obvious step is add some stick-on graphics (no, Im not going to spray graphics on).  There are heaps of stickers for vespas on ebay, but I couldnt find anything that I liked.  I dont want to overly associate myself or my scooter with the Mod scene by putting checker stripes on (i really dont like the look of middle aged men being mods - there is something really not right about that oxymoron).
Eventually I found a very helpful chap (Dean, AKA dsn101) on ebay who said he could print any decal/sticker i wanted, and so for £10 he printed me 3 off 1000mmx70mm Italian Tricolure strips.

Now you would think that applying stickers to your bike would be childs play wouldn't you?  I was surprised to see how many youtube videos there are of professionals showing you how to apply stickers, but was grateful to learn the water/soap spray method - it helped a lot.
And so some detailing has been added to the scooter - and i rather like it.  The only thing I might do different in another life would be to have an extra pair of hands around to help stretch the leg-shield stripe around the compound curve - mine has run off line a little - i can see now why people typically use shorter and narrower stripes on this area.

I had a comment from someone the other day about the scooter - they liked it very much and connected the front shock absorber Guinness-can cover with what they saw as the Irish flag stripes and made the immediate assumption that I was Irish! Hmm i hadnt seen it like that - I might have to change that can for a peronni can (mind you, im not Italian either!)

 in other news - Ive bought myself a 10mm link chain and an alarmed padlock - so I hope i can minimise the opportunity for any pesky thieves

hmm i must get those wheels painted too

MOT

The trouble is I cant really test the scooter without getting it on the road, and so I really do need to get an MOT.  Everything seems to run ok, except for the rear indicators.  And so while the family were watching some rubbish celebrity reality TV show, I nipped out into the garage to investigate. 
Unfortunately you cant test the lights on this scooter without starting it up, and as it was late in the cold evening I decided that I would just have to wait till the next morning to see if my scratching-the-paint-off-the-side-panel-spring-clips solution had done the trick in restoring an electrical circuit to the rear indicators. 
It did :-)
So there I was - with a bike as good as it was going to get ready for an MOT.  What to do?
The sun was out, but the forecast for a few days time is for snow! so now seemed like an ideal time to get the bike out on the road to an MOT center.
Gransport had told me previously that they used Vale Onslow for all their scooter MOTs.  Now Vale Onslow is apparently legendary in the classic motorcycle world.  I had certainly known of his shop on the Stratford road since i first came to Birmingham 30 years ago - but the building is a tip now - surely they werent still going?
I was keen to get MOT'd by someone who knew oldish Vespas - by comparison to new scooters, my PX would never stand up to the same scrutiny - not because it is unroadworthy, but because that is how they are - not as tight and sharp as a modern machine - fact of life.  And so I phoned Vale Onslow to enquire about an MOT.
"Bring it now if you want" said a quite disinterested and offhand old chap
Gulp "what now??!   er give me an hour"  I was a little off balance - i hadnt really stealed myself for going off straight away (today?)
So with - and i have to admit it - a shake in my knees (I was really quite anxious) I went and got a little tool kit together - just in case.   What would you take on a maiden voyage after a complete rebuild?  I took;
3 x combination spanners (8mm, 10mm, 13mm)
1 x small adjustable spanner
1 x pair long nosed pliers
1 x long flat screwdriver
1 x long posidrive screwdriver
all wrapped up in 3 new pieces of rag
I thought this might cover the basic slipped cable or carb adjustment - any failure bigger than that could be sorted by throwing the whole thing in the nearest skip and getting a bus home.
I did do a final tightening of front and rear brake cables and the clutch cable, then suitably togged up in my ski jacket and ski gloves (it might be sunny , but its blimmin chilly), I donned - for the first time in action - my bright orange crash helmet - remember that? the helmet I bought 6 months ago when I thought I was going to be riding it for the summer - before I looked underneath the floorpan.

As anxious as I was in preparing to go - once in the saddle and driving out the end of our road - I felt great.  I was relaxed and in control and it all felt so natural.  The scooter ran like a dream, idles gently, pulls hard and cruises effortlessly.  The riding position is really comfortable and despite my rear view mirrors vibrating beyond use, I wasnt at all anxious about the road or traffic.  I think there is a bit more adjustment to be done in the gearchange cables - or maybe it was just my inexperience that made me incorrectly select neutral a couple of times.

It was maybe a half hour run over to Vale Onslows MOT workshop (though I did choose a slightly long route to avoid the city center) and the MOT process turned out to be a delightful experience.
The workshop was comfortably grubby and cluttered.  There was no clear bench space and only just enough floor space for me to wheel my scooter in amongst the half stripped Aerials and BSAs (though I did notice a quad bike and a corgi parachute motobike in the corner)
The MOT man (i think a son of Len Onslow himself) was a delightfully reserved / grumpy old chap with a twinkle in his eye.  While he checked my bike over he and another old chap, told me stories about the war; rations, ministry-men, and black-markets.  There was no rush.  We had a lovely chat during which I was awarded with an MOT for £28.

And so I was able to drive back home so very nearly legal (I still need to get road Tax) - I smiled most of the way - and even got her up to 60mph on the Bristol road! I didnt do it for long, I really dont want to come off that bike.  Even less so in a ski jacket and ski gloves!

So nothing dramatic to report - everything as it should be.
I suspect that this story is coming to an end now.  I hope for years of trouble free riding - and that by its very nature it simply not very interesting stuff to write about or read about.  I wonder if the most enjoyable part of owning a Vespa is coming to the end for me?  Only time will tell.

We are going for it now!

It would of course make sense to throw a dust sheet over the scooter now and wait for winter to pass. 
But owning this scooter never made sense from the start, so why start now?

I would really like to get an MOT on the bike now - just to know all is good, and if its not then I have the whole winter to fix it.  But in order to get an MOT, i need to get it out on the road and for that I need insurance - so Ive just bought myself some insurance.
I phoned 3 companies, and they all quoted much of a muchness, but I felt in the end the best deal I got was with Bikesure. £133 for 3rdPFT, £150 Excess, 5000mile limited mileage - and this includes oodles of legal cover and heaps of personal accident cover (I wasnt really listening - but it will be in the documents when they send them through).
I valued the bike at £2000, and it made me realise that its not such a daft thing to have insurance now - even if Im not going to use it during the winter, as it is certainly stealable now, and should be covered by insurance.

In an ideal world I would like to get some miles (well at least some hours) on the clock before taking it out on the roads for an MOT - just to know that the bolts wont rattle off or a cable nipple doesnt slip - but thats virtually impossible to do.  I can only ride so many times up and down our culdesac (and even that is illegal) without annoying neighbours, and so I shall have to bite the bullet sometime, and why not straight away?
 
So, in theory,  if I wanted to now,  if i fix the rear indicators tonight,  I could take the scooter for an MOT tomorrow (the weather report says 'sunny'
ooh exciting! i wont be able to sleep!

will it start?

Well to cut a long story short.... yes it does! :-)
Of course it does.  I shouldnt have been surprised really - Vespas - they're not rocket science!

But to tell the long story....
Its saturday, which means I can comfortably take the whole day to myself in the garage, and with all the little rebuild steps ive been doing up til now, I was pretty well committed to starting her today.
Top up oils.  Put a gallon of 50:1 two-stoke mix in the fuel tank (Dan recommended this as a precaution, but I notice that Haynes also suggest this after an engine strip, just to ensure some lubrication while the autolube primes) - connect and adjust rear brake cable, clutch cable....... and then I found myself titting around again with the number plate and the tax disc holder.  Once again I was subconsciously avoiding the big question - would it run?  I snapped out of it and put the ancillaries to one side, and wheeled the scooter out of the garage.  The last time id started it, Id filled my garage and next doors house with white smoke, so I wasnt taking any chances this time.

Ignition on, fuel tap to Aperto, choke out.
Kick one (ooh that new kickstart gear does feel considerably more positive)
Kick two - and she fired into life! But OMG what is that racket?  Whats happened? it sounds worse than it did before the rebuild!  It must have only been seconds but I remember it feeling like an age as the bolt of cold sweat ran down my back and I panicked.  I could see another engine rebuild flash before my eyes as I desperately fumbled to try to work out how to stop the engine - in my panic I seemed to have become blind to the ignition switch.
Turns out that i'd forgotten to put the exhaust pipe and silencer back on!  What an idiot!

So on with the exhaust pipe - and a little reflection - is everything (else) properly in place?
Kick - first time start.  Sweet :-)
But OMG whats that racket?  Bloody hell there is still a clattering in the engine.  Again I felt a wave of depression go over me as I saw a vision of the engine coming out again - can I really be bothered?
It turns out that I could make the clattering stop if I pulled the clutch in - Aha, so maybe its a clutch adjustment thing.  I can fix that later - but first lets see if I can get this thing to drive.
Well yes it does drive, but its not sweet.  its difficult to get it into neutral and it stalls too easily unless you give it considerable revs and clutch slip.
Ok, so it starts and runs, but it looks like im going to be doing some fine tuning and cable adjustments - but it was time for breakfast.

As I sat having my toast and coffee (and this is the cool thing about walking away from a problem and letting your unconscious mind to incubate - I thoroughly recommend it - whenever you have a problem that needs sorting, start by doing nothing!) , it slowly occured to me - I wonder if it would be possible to get the gear-change cables crossed - so that what looks like first gear on the handle bar is actually fourth gear and visaversa - and in that instance, neutral would be at the other end of the twist.
[Vespa has a simple in principle, but potentially complicated and troublesome dual cable arrangement from the handlebar twist to the gear-changer unit on the side of the engine.]

So suitably caffined and warmed up, I went back to the scooter and tried to ride it down our road using the gear-change 'in reverse'
OMG (again) everything is as sweet as a nut!  its perfect!  clutch spot on and gear selection smooth.  And now that I knew where the real neutral was, that awful clattering had disappeared - clearly what id been trying to do was find a neutral INBETWEEN gears - and I think this is exactly what I was hearing in the video I posted a few weeks ago, before the engine rebuild.
Once again - I am a complete idiot - I had literally got my wires crossed!  and was selecting the gears in reverse.  No wonder it wouldnt pull without revs and clutch slip - I was trying to pull away in top gear!

So it was a simple case of swapping the cables over at the gear-selector end (well not quite so simple now that everything was on the engine, but certainly no more than 30 minutes)
Another test run and I am delighted :-)
Everything is as it should be (though I think i need to sort the earth out on those rear indicators)
There is still a fair puff of white smoke.  Im not sure what is acceptable.  Is this smoke from the grease and rebuild oil?  maybe its smoke from the double dose of 2 stroke oil (in the fuel mix and in the auto lube).  I hope its not burning oil from the gearbox now that Ive replace all those oil seals.
ooh and I do need to get those wheels painted!

So now what? there was only so much riding up and down our road I could do - I need to get an MOT, tax and insurance.  Its such a shame that the weather is turning now for the winter - just when I am ready to get out on the road.
Whatever happens now, I do feel relieved and pleased to have got it all to this point - its all been worth it :-)

Engine in

Up with the lark again to see if I can get the engine back into its frame before work.
Remind me to buy myself a little trolley jack - it would have made it so much easier to lift the engine the necessary 8" off the ground and into position.  As it happened, lots of blocks of wood and plenty of swearing did the trick.  Its not that its heavy to lift or that the mounting is difficult to access, but it is difficult to get access all around the engine when you are trying to hold the blimmin thing at the same time.
Of course it all went back into place easily - its only just come out afterall.
Connected up fuel and oil pipes (I really want to get the 2-stroke oil settling into the system before i start her up).
And then it was time for work - Though I was happy to leave it there.  This was a momentous occasion (arent they all?) - the engine was securely back in the frame and I can almost see the light at the end of the tunnel.... again :-/

Building the engine up

So its all a case of popping everything back together now isnt it?
Well almost.  Im trying to grab a half hour here, and hour there so you can imagine how miffed I was when it turns out that my gasket set didnt include the carb/engine case gasket.  Another lunch time trip to Gransport who assure me that it should have been in there, so gave me one anyway - Thanks Dan.
rebuilding all the bits is pretty plain sailing really - though i do often have little panics - did I tighten those nuts properly? did I remove the bit of rag stuffed in to stop dirt falling in? etc etc

One small panic is that I forgot to soak the new clutch plates in oil before reassembling.  I notice that some engine rebuild blogs and books, dont make reference to this proceedure, but some do.  I wonder if I should take the clutch out again? or will the engine oil splash his way up there nice and easily anyway?

Another little head-scratch ive had is over the timing.  The position of the stator plate that I removed is different to that suggested by Haynes manual.  Being electronic ignition there isnt any contact breakers to adjust, but you can still advance/retard the timing by the rotary position of the stator.  The picture here, shows the timing as it was when I broke the engine down (i know it runs like that, but I dont know if it was running properly).  Haynes say that the PX200E engine should have the mark on the casing aligned with the 'A' mark on the stator plate - that looks like a couple of degrees different to how it was.
So, what to do?
Well in the end I went with what Haynes says, reasoning that I was better to trust him than some previous owner who thought a pop-riveted plate over a rotted out chassis was satisfactory engineering.
We shall see what happens when I try to start her (soon I hope)


I do worry about the autolube device - I have no evidence to say it wont work properly, but it does all seem so marginal to me - its a delicate bit of mechanics, doing a finely tuned operation with a thick gunk that is just waiting for a blockage - and then it all goes catastrophic!  I decided that as I didnt know the history of the 2-stroke oil already in the tank, I would drain it and refill with fresh - I should have thought this through, but it turns out that there is more than a pint milk-bottles worth of oil in that tank, and the following morning there was probably a good half pint of oil all over my garage floor! still at least i know ive got a flushed tank now, so fingers crossed for many years of trouble free autolube. 
Tip No.1 from Dan at Gransport - always put a couple of caps of 2-stroke oil in a full tank of petrol - as a just in case.  Tip No.2 from Dan - only fill the oil tank part way up so that you dont fill the complete sight-glass - this way you can see if the oil is being consumed by a correctly working autolube mechanism.

So everything assembled, it all seems to turn over nice and smoothly and compression feels good