Vespa 100 Sport

I’m rebuilding a 1980 Vespa 100 Sport for my brother. I’ve been tinking with it in my garage for like a year, but I haven’t made much time to do anything with it until recently.

The ugly camoflage one is the 100 sport. The blue one belongs to a friend. I took this picture when I first bought it last august. It had spark, but no cables, no battery or engine doors, no front fender, and no seat cover. Then there’s the ugly paint…

I took these pictures after I cleaned the carb, put some new cables in, and replaced the seat cover. I tried to see if Janice would ride it, but girls don’t seem to like manual transmission scooters. She prefers the Honda Spree.

I couple of weeks ago I decided to take off that unsightly camo paint. I used stuff called “graphiti remover” from Ace. I got most of it off, but there are  a few spots left. The steering was pulling a little to the right. That means that somebody crashed this bike, especially since the fender was gone. I wasn’t feeling the cost of a new fork, so I took the one I have to a guy in town that bent it back with a pnuematic press. It isn’t exact, but it’s a lot better than it was and the fender doesn’t rub.

The picture on the top is the fuel lever. I bought a used one that is built for this model, but the plastic gears inside it were too worn to turn the lever. So I used a lever I had sitting around and drilled a hole in a piece of sheet metal to cover the giant hole left by the old fuel lever. The middle picture is my battery door. I wasn’t feeling the $150 cost of a new one, so instead I fabricated one out of sheet metal with tin snips and my hammer and dolly set (body work tools). I bought the engine side door, which is much more common, for $35 from American Scooter Center. I think you’ll agree that the bike looks MUCH nicer.