Back to Work

I had been out of town for a few weeks touring the south. I’m coming back tomorrow and am geared up to finally kicked this thing over.

I finally got the fuel tank from Uraguay. I think it took three weeks to get to me. That day, I was so excited to get it together that I ran down to Casa Lambretta in Denver to get a fuel tap and a few other needed but unrequired items. I ended up spending $150 down there. I was like a kid in a candy store. I got a new set of brake and clutch cables, a couple plugs, the fuel tap, fuel tank straps, and a used horncast. Everything seemed a bit overpriced except for the horncast, which I got for $40. These are $100-150 new. I think the take-away from this little trip is that Casa Lambretta is a great place to scrounge up less expensive used parts. They usually cater to people who want their bikes restored to show room condition. If a part has a slight blemish or defect, you can get a smokin’ deal on it. At least, that’s my impression.

I had also got my headset in the mail. It had an old lock with no key stuck in it. I had to drill it out, piece by piece.  It came out, and the new one is in. I had run out to buy all those parts so that I could get the bike back together and try to kick it over before I left. After it took a whole afternoon to get the lock out to paint the headset, I realized that it wasn’t going to happen so soon. I didn’t want to cut any corners or leave a whole bunch of work for later that would necessitate taking the bike apart, so I just let it be.

But I did get a few accessories painted.

The paint I bought from a place called Auto Body Supply in Orem Utah. The paint is a dead on match. It looks great. It doesn’t have the same hardness of regular automotive paint, but It came out looking very nice. Durability may be another question. If you need aerosol cans of paint matched to a specific project, I would HIGHLY recommend these guys. They even worked with me to get the paint out by 5 pm because I was leaving that night.

I also picked up some fuel line and stella gaskets from the Scooter Lounge, the prime scooter shop of Utah Valley. They deal with every scooter even POS scoots from China, but they usually have to order lambretta parts from lambretta shops.

Under recommendation, I also took a look inside the chain case at the clutch. I hadn’t quite figured out how it worked before I started, so I pulled out the retaining ring without putting pressure on the clutch springs. All five went flying as soon as the ring came out. Lesson learned. Use a puller to put pressure on the springs to take the clutch apart.

My clutch had been sitting so long that it had fused into one piece. I pryed each piece apart then cleaned off the all metal plates by sanding off the little cork bits that had stuck on them. Once they were clean and smooth, I soaked the cork plates in 80W90 gear oil to restore a little life into them. I picked up this information from conversations and various scooter and motorcycle boards (the word on the street). It might have been better to buy new clutch plates, but they looked like they were in decent shape. I might as well get all the use out of them I can.

The cables seemed to be in manageable shape except for the front brake. For those who don’t know, 75% of your stopping power is in the front brake, according to the book I had to study to get my motorcycle license. That means having front brakes is pretty important. Anyway, as soon as I get the bike running, I’m going to want to ride it. It will be nice if it is actually safe to ride once it runs. Having functioning brakes is a definite start in that direction (note to self: check the drum brakes before riding). The only cable that I managed to replace before I left was the front brake. The other cables look like they are in there pretty tight. I’m pretty sure you have to take off the legshield to get them out. I was going to take off the legshield anyway to paint it. I wanted to make sure that I got everything under the rubber floor strips. So now it’s a twofer.