Here's the engine of the VNB. As you can see, the cables are all disconnected. I need to hunt down the knob for the choke but I am pretty sure I saw it in the box of parts that came with it. I will sit down and start reconnecting them all tomorrow. I know where it all goes but less sure about what to do with it once it gets there. Like when I was a teenager.
It has an aftermarket Kei-Hin clone carburetor and a little pod filter. The cylinder kit is a 166cc so this ought to be an awesome ride when it's going. I hope that's some time tomorrow.
Now that it's home, I have been able to take stock of this scooter I found out in the country. It's a 1968 Vespa Super 125 (VNC). The front fork is the wrong one. The headset isn't connected and I just noticed the fork is even backwards in the pic! I will have to hunt down a proper one.
The problem is the piston. It's seized. I knew this when I bought it so it isn't a horrible surprise. When I first saw it, the owner said he had been spraying penetrating oil on it for several months. You can smell the penetrating oil as you walk up to the bike.
I was taking stock of the Vespas I picked up this weekend, making a mental checklist of what needed to be done to get them running and rolling. I got to this one and the front fork issue is easy and apparent. I took off the engine cowl and took some pictures of the engine and tried turning the flywheel. I saw that this was happening:
The piston is not seized in the case as I had assumed. It's seized to the cylinder barrel which was moving back and forth with the free piston arm. I am hoping this is a very good sign.
The flywheel is on the left. The piston is the bright metal in the center and the rest is the cylinder barrel with the sleeve around the piston. If the piston was to the left by an inch or so, I could pull the clip, free it from the arm, and remove the cylinder and piston at the same time.
The engine will probably need a rebuild with new bearings and seals etc... so this is not insurmountable.
Difficult? Probably, but they're just parts. It's all just parts.
Foolhardy? Yes. Most likely. Still, you don't learn by always getting it right the first time and I have some great resources. Again, it's just parts.
I have asked some other people with scooters to write some guest posts about their scooters, their histories, problems, work done and maybe some crazy stories. Keep an eye out for those posts soon. (The girl in this pic really needs to change that back tire...)
I am friends with Scooter Steve and he is currently moving his scooter service shop from its location in North Austin down to Buda, Texas, which is down south of Austin. He and I loaded all of these scooters into this trailer behind my truck and then stuck two more in the back of the truck, two more in the back of HIS truck and several more in the back of the trailer HE was hauling. We moved about 20 scooters today.
Those were just the bikes he had in a storage unit. Here's Steve deep in the sea of bikes still in his shop. I didn't get the picture of him walking across the tops of the scooters to get back there. His new place is MUCH bigger and I can see having some good times out there.
We had to stop and have some BBQ for lunch. It IS Texas after all.
This is my daily rider right now. It's a 2002 Bajaj Chetak. It wasn't running very well when I bought it. The previous owner bought it new and rode it to work every day for a couple of years. When his new job was further than he could go on the scooter, he parked it in his garage and it sat there for a couple of years.
When I went to look at it, he could start it up but it wouldn't run for long. He said he "messed with these screws on the engine" to try and get it running, but he didn't have any luck and he was moving to Hawaii and he was just selling it. I got it for a good price. Plus a helmet and some oil and a new throttle cable.
I took it home and changed the plug and replaced the vacuum and fuel hoses. I pulled the carb which was really gunky but not corroded. I cleaned it out and set the mixture screw back to the factory setting. Once it all back together, it ran a little better but was still choking out.
I got down and checked the oil. I could see that it was dirty but I kept putting the dipstick in at a wrong angle because it kept coming back with oil all the way past the high mark on the stick. After the third time, it occurred to me to look into the oil reservoir and I could see oil right up to the lip. It was overfilled. I drained the oil and looked through it. It was really dark, but not too metallic. No mouse skeletons or anything. I refilled the reservoir slowly, checking the volume over and over until it was the correct level.
The engine started right up. I adjusted the idle and it sat there chugging away quietly.
It had some electrical issues that I sorted out by replacing all the bulbs in the lights. The horn is still odd. Rather than blasting when I hit the button, it beeps a little when I release the button. It's been suggested that it's the tuning screw in the back of the horn assembly. (I think in writing this out I may have stumbled on a possible cause. The Chetak has a turn signal beeper that is very loud and annoying. I disconnected it and left the wires hanging. Now I am wondering if this interrupts or somehow affects the current for the horn. I'm learning!)
It's my first manual shift scooter. I have driven manual in cars and trucks so I got the concept but it has all been Twist and Go up til this point. I can ride and shift just fine but I can tell that A. I need to adjust the clutch and B. there's a lot more nuance to be learned. I still jerk like a donkey on it sometimes. In fact, the neighbor kids call me Donkey Jerk when they see me. Although now that I think about it, they were calling me that before I got the Bajaj...
I like it. I like the sound of the gears changing and the control I have over acceleration. It's fast enough. I had it at 60 (in a 45! Bad me.) It starts up right away with either the starter switch or the first or second kick.
What I DON'T like is the chrome rack on the front (or most excessive chrome work and mirrors. Sorry scooter history purists...) I appreciate the protective nature of the cowl bars but the rack is like a rattly semi-useful parasite or a shiny chrome monkey hanging on for a ride. But what else am I going to do with it? Put it inside my house to take up space? Sell it on eBay? I already have the thing, shouldn't I keep it?
I do use the rack occasionally but the thing I really enjoy about the Chetak is the manual transmission and the tough guttural sound of the muffler (someone somewhere is saying, "why don't you just buy a motorcycle?" Shut up, already). So I'll be riding along thinking "Yeah! this thing sounds awesome!" and I will look down and see the rack and it stares back at me and rattles and says in a whisper I can hear over the engine, "Station Wagon!!" and I realize I am going 40mph and not the "F*CK YEAH" guestimated 80mph I had going for a bit there. Screw you, rack. You can't take me down like that.
I did wrap a bungee cord around it and that helped the rattle but I haven't figured out a good clean solution to silence the lock on the glovebox which rings like a little jinglebell on speed. It probably doesn't help that this is the music I hear in my head every time I get on it to ride:
