Okay, so I have hinted to the fact that I have been working on my scooter for the past couple of weeks, maybe months. There are a couple of reasons why this is taking so long:

1. I have never done engine work before, so I’m learning as I go. This requires tons of reading shop manuals, online sites, and running through news groups
2. I didn’t have all of the tools and parts from the beginning to do the rebuild. So I have made multiple trips to the scooter shop, hardware store, and auto parts store to pick up stuff when I needed it. And typically each trip out meant going to a couple of places before I found what I needed. It’s pretty hard tracking down 7mm split washers and nuts!
3. I get discouraged when I hit a wall, and tend to leave the project alone for days if not weeks. This first happened right after I dropped the motor out of the chassis. I’m not sure why, maybe it was I was a little scared to open it up. As if it was too complicated.

Anyway, tonight I finally got everything put back together and ready to fire up. But, when I kicked the starter for the first time I noticed something rather strange, the flywheel wasn’t moving. NOT GOOD! This is exactly why I had to rebuild the motor in the first place. After spending all this time I never fixed the god damn problem!

If you know me, you probably guessed right. The f-bomb was flying around in the garage for quite some time, and maybe a couple of wrenches too. So here I am right back at square one with a broken kickstarter! UGHHGGH!!!!

Nicole put it nicely, “well at least you should be able to rebuild it lot quicker now that you know how it’s done.”

That assuming this time I’m smart enough to check to see that when I get the kickstart gear in place that everything is working as it should before I seal the cases again.

Sweet that did it! I was able to get the flywheel off in a matter of minutes and the cases cracked soon after that. Once open I noticed that the kickstart spring was missing. Now this piece is pretty crucial since it keeps pressure on the kickstart pinion to make sure is stays put. Obviously, without this the pinion is able to move freely and end up falling off just as it did.

When I bought the scooter the shop said that it would do some work, like replace the shift cross and seals. As far as I can tell the seals look pretty new, so I am guessing they did the work and neglected to put the spring back in place.

Unfortunately, the scooter shops are all closed until Tuesday so I will what to wait until then to get the parts I need. I have to say I feel pretty darn good about my progress. Which definitely earns me a draft or two tonight at the pub!

Nice I just found a good site on Vespa maintenance and repair.

They have a detailed description and images on how to crack open the cases. It shows how I can lock up the crank by putting a punch in the piston to stop the flywheel from moving…

I’ll try this tonight! If it doesn’t work then the motor is going to Eric over at First Kick.

As you may remember the engine on my SS died a while back. All I know is that there was a horrible noise which made me kill the engine as quickly as I able to react. When I ensured there was enough oil in the crank case I tried to kick it over to see what would happen. This is when I found out the kick starter went right to the ground with out much effort, because whatever it engages with inside wasn’t anymore.

Well with a little research on the scooter sites, I found the only way to fix this is to crack open the engine cases, which if done by the scooter shop when all said and done with parts and labor will probably run me around $700. Great then this is an excellent opportunity to educate myself on Piaggio’s fine engineering and in the process save some dough by doing the work myself.

That weekend I dropped the engine from the body. The Hyanes manual claimed this should take 1 hour, but it in fact took 5 1/2 for me. Not so bad considering make my living as a Software Engineer. But as you can see, this was a month and a half ago.

Well today I finally bit the bullet and dove into it. After an hour I was at the point in which I needed to remove the flywheel. Cool! Well not so cool. I can’t get the god damn thing to stay put and I am worried of damaging the piston in the mean time. After 2 hours cursing and the stupid thing, I decided to make a trip to Sears to pick up an impact wrench. These are suppose to help getting stubborn bolts loose. Guess what?! No dice. I’m pretty sure that I’m not using the tool correctly, but of course it doesn’t come with directions. It’s so frustrating.

I’m not sure my nerves can deal with this. I think I’m going to call the scooter shop Tuesday to see when they can begin working on the engine.

A good 6 hours were spent yesterday dropping the engine from my Vespa. The Haynes manual claimed it should take about 1 hour, but I am guessing that is for someone who has experience doing this sort of thing and doesn’t have to make a trip to Sears for a new 22 mm socket head.

I’m finding it interesting how many pieces of the bike have been replaced with unmatched parts. For example, the 5 nuts on the rear wheel are not the same, two are 13 mm and the other three are 14 mm. I am guessing a couple of them may have stripped on the original owner and it was easier to just use what he had laying around in the shop instead of going to the store and getting the correct size. I plan on renewing these to make it easier on myself if I get a flat. It’s frustrating enough with requiring multiple wrenches.

The plan is to document the process as I go. We’ll see how long that lasts…

Well I just went out to pick up a couple of random things and on my way back my vespa stalled out 3 times. It took a few kicks each time to get it back up and running, but when I reached Fulton and Stanyan it just quit!

It sounds to me that gas stopped making it way to the engine. There could be a bunch of problem which lead up to this, but I am guessing it may have to deal with my carburetor. Now it’s time to fix the little bugger, because I have my road test on tuesday and need something to ride!