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.

I can’t believe it. I popped that carb float in there and it fired up the second kick!

I’d been waiting for ANY store to get a carb float. Casa Lambretta says that they are no longer made. West Coast Lambretta Works says they won’t be getting any in for months. Scooters Originali says they found a place in Europe that is going to start making them, but they won’t be ready for a while. I had almost lost hope of finding one.

Then I went to the Scooter Lounge in Orem, Utah while I was in town. I asked Dave, the owner, for some cables and stuff and said, “Oh by the way, if you happen to have a carb float for a Del Lorto SH1/18 carb, you would save my life. I’ve looked everywhere.”

He said, “You know what, I think I might.”

He happened to have a used carb sitting around and he sold me the float for $5! I couldn’t believe he had one. It’s a dream come true.

I’ve been working on details and little things for a while, like painting the rims…

I put in the correct mounting hardware for the horncast and mudguard.

I bought a used horncast grill, stripped it, and shined it up.

And I touched up the rear rack and put it back on.

I got a package today. But sadly, it didn’t include the float. I tried sealing the one I have with “Seal All.” That didn’t work at all. It didn’t even last long enough to not flood the engine while I tried kicking it over. I don’t really get it, but that just means I have to break down and buy the float.

The sad part is that nobody actually has it in stock. I called five shops. West Coast lambretta Works has the part listed on their site, but they won’t get it for THREE MONTHS! One place, Scooters Originali, said they will have some in a few weeks. The big unveiling will have to wait until then.

That gives me some time to work through cosmetic issues. For example, I got new tubes and tires and am going to paint the rims, which are rusted so bad the tire won’t even come off. I also replaced all my cables. It’s something I’ve been meaning to do for a while and it makes me feel better about trying to ride the bike around.

I had a chance to mount my new horncast, and my horncast grill is soaking in a solution that will take off the paint. I got to give a shout out to Casa Lambretta on that one. $20 for the grill. Those guys are awesome. If you do anything with a lambretta scooter, those are the people to talk to. Suzi will take good care of you.

Here’s a picture of the mounted horncast. BEHOLD:

On a side note, my clutch cable went out on the Stella while I was doing 40 on 3rd Street (Laramie). I had to drive home in 1st, 2nd, and neutral. Anyway, I bought a $3 part from Casa Lambretta (they deal in Vespa stuff also) and got it back on the road the same day.  The replacement took like 15 minutes. Now that I know what I’m doing, it would take less than 5. I only mention this because I was looking at a Stella a long time ago that a guy was selling for $1500, which is a bargain. He was selling it way below normal asking prices because his clutch cable went out. He was having trouble getting it sold too. For $3 and a little grease on his hands, he’d easily get $2000. (Here’s where I extol the virtues of Handymen) Because he was selling a broken bike, he’d have to wait for somebody to show up with enough balls to just try to fix it; somebody who isn’t afraid to. I think a handyman isn’t somebody who is good with machines. I think he’s somebody who isn’t afraid of them.

That lack of fear, or what the french call a certain I-don’t-know-what, is quite a money saver. How about $500 more for that bike or saving the $100 for having a scooter shop do it.

Here we go:

Ok. So it didn’t start. I’m not surprised or dissapointed. In the course of doing this, I found out some important things.

1. It is getting spark. At first it was weak, but I adjusted the ground and my little tester lit up bright. This is crucial because I was worried I didn’t have it wired right. I put it back the way I found it and there was no telling if it was hooked up right in the first place. But I had to guess where the ground went because none of that was hooked up.

2. The carburetor was leaking like a sieve. The “float” is supposed to close the fuel line off when the carburetor is full of fuel. But it was filling up with fuel, wouldn’t float, and wouldn’t raise the needle to close the chamber. The chamber floods and then the engine floods. 

I called Casa Lambretta and they said they don’t have any new floats. They also said that most replacements are not a good fit. I’m not sure I wanted to pay $20 for a new one anyway. I’m going to try to seal it with some stuff I borrowed from a friend. It may just be a temporary fix…

Now I have to wait for the float to dry out. It’s been 4 days already and it still has fuel in it. Just a waiting game…

But it still wasn’t clean.

I did the gas again, but It still just didn’t seem clean. So I dryed it out again and put it back in the dryer. By the way, I actually “dry it out” for days by setting it in the sun. I’m not putting a gas tank with gas in it in an electric dryer. That’s part of why it took so long.

After the second go in the dryer, I poored in some naval jelly. Now that got it clean. But I had to rinse it out with water.

Flash rust.

But there are not big chunks in the tank anymore. It’s time to just say “good ’nuff.” I will have to buy a special inline fuel filter for lambrettas because a normal one won’t fit in the two inches of fuel line (one little surprise when I mounted it). 

I also had to clear off the 5 or 6 layers of paint representing about 45 years of use that were on this thing. Maybe I should have gone with a new stainless steel tank from ScootRS.com…

With this thing finally on, the Lammy is actually starting to look like a scooter.

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.

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.