Stella Adventures

I bought my ‘03 Stella (Vespa PX150) a few months ago and was able to get it for a good price. This was in part because it had been laid down. It will just break your heart to hear the story: The guy I bought it from had just bought it that day. He was showing it off to a friend when the friend asked to try it out. Reluctantly, he agreed.

The friend gets on it, revs it up to like 1/2 throttle and just lets out the clutch. I mean, he just let it go. Well these are pretty high torque machines and even a wary rider can be surprised, so you can probably guess what happens next. The bike pops a huge wheelie, throws the kid off (not sure if he was thrown off or bailed out, but the effect is the same), and the bike barrels down the road by itself. Bikes don’t balance so well on their own, so this one fell on its side and skidded to a stop.  The side panel absorbed most of the brunt of this exercise in stupidity. Oh by the way, your new vintage scooter is not the bike for your idiot friends to learn on.  Poor Stella.

So I thought it would be nice to restore her to her former glory (and then some).

First, I sanded off the affected area. Unfortunatly, I didn’t take any pictures before I bondo-ed, so you will have to use your imagination:

1. Picture the side panel really jacked up.

2. Picture the side panel having a giant dent in the side, but the bare metal is shiny from being sanded.

Next, I slapped some bondo on there. I also had to put some glazing putty on some bondo trouble spots.

Then I masked it off.

 

Then primered and sanded smooth.

I had a can of Krylon Pumpkin spray paint, but I decided it wasn’t a close enough match. The Stella came with a little can of touch up paint. I decided to use that even though I’d have to sand it smooth.

First Coat.

After it was all painted and had set drying for days (yah, this took a while), I wet-sanded with 400, 800, then 2000 grit paper. I was dissappointed that 2000 didn’t actually get it shiny, so I had to buy some Turtle Wax polishing compound. I went over it with that and got it pretty shiny, but I think the paint is still not entirely dry. The newly painted part shines up a lot faster than the old. I’ll wait a week or so then try it again. It looks pretty good, but it’s not perfect. 

 

A while back, I had also put on Sito plus custom exhaust on this thing, which bolts right onto the Stella without any modification.  But whenever you make an upgrade like this, you need to change the Jetting (carburetor settings).

I didn’t.

I thought that because it was jetted to Denver and I live more than 2000 feet higher than Denver, it should be ok to leave the jetting alone.

I was wrong.

I didn’t even take it that far. I took it out for a four mile ride to do a plug read (test how the bike is running based on what the spark plug looks like after a ride). I rode it pretty hard and the plug was nearly white. That’s very bad. The engine wasn’t getting enough fuel so it was burning hotter than it was supposed to. Combine that with the NGK B6ES Spark plug (burns too hot for this kind of riding) and you get burned up engine seals in just a short time. I had to rejet the bike (96 main jet for you techies) and replace the flywheel side oil seal.

It is running great now–like a top, as they say. I’ve had it up to 65 on west Laramie highways. The performance exhaust makes it so much zippier. I don’t see how somebody can own a vespa without one.