SOLD!

Well as things would have it I have sold the VL1T to another scooter enthusiast.  Sold it for the same price I paid to buy it $750.  I had hundreds of dollars of parts and lots of hours in to the project but I had hit a wall.  And since the scooter had been hanging from the wall I decided it was time to cut the cord and let the rebuild pass on to the next person.

So she is gone and hopefully I will see her at a rally in the future.

There was a comment on the blog where someone asked to see the SS180 which eventually was responsible for me throwing in the towel on the VL1T.

Below is a picture of the SS180 on the operating table.  She is getting a top end rebuild, new cables and possible front end rebuild as well.  Hopefully that will be enough to get her back on the road.

In the foreground you also see the 73 script Primavera 125 which I finished earlier this spring.  That was a great project from the ground up.  Total engine rebuild, new cables and wiring, front end rebuild, made her battery less  etc etc .  Runs like a charm with some minor clutch adjustments needed right now as she is dragging a bit.

You can also see my Allstate.  Another total ground up job.  Added a VNB fork to the front to get a suspension which included the dampener.  Great fun.

Have fun out there!!!

I need to get serious about this engine

As months roll by this project gets pushed further back.

Now I have a 73 Primavera I am overhauling and a new SS180.

I am making a post here to remind myself and promise anyone who may stop by in the future that this job will get done.  I just need to get her down from the rafters and start fitting that engine.  I have a ton of parts ready to rock and roll  and just purchased a new wiring harness.

Stick with it Ben!

A new seat and and engine bracket

Well maybe some of the waiting is over.  I received an engine bracket this week so I should be able to bring the scoot down from the rafters and see how a 125cc engine from the 60s fits in to the body.  If it seems to fit OK I will start on a rebuild of that engine and probably upgrade to a 135 or so cc for a little bit more power.  I know it will not fit perfectly and will require some frame modifications but this is not a show scoot so that does not bother me a whole lot.  Here is a picture of the engine mounting bracket.

I do not have a ton of space in my garage/workshop since I just started dismantling a 1974 125 Primavera and I am still working on my Allstate rebuild.  I will have to see if maybe I can rearrange some things.

I also received a new seat cover.  The idea of having the cobbler fix the old cover did not work out. The leather was too far gone and the repair job looked terrible and would not last.  So I purchased a new cover and put it on the saddle frame today.  It looks pretty good.  Somewhere I have misplaced the grab bar for the pinion seat???  I am certain it is in the garage but I can not find it in either box of parts I have for this project...too much stuff.  Hopefully it will turn up as it was a nice old piece in very good shape.

Here are two photos of the new seat cover.

Oh the Shame

So I am waiting to decide which way to go with the engine.  Spend money rebuilding and sourcing parts for the old wide frame engine I purchased in April, or use the engine bracket to install a newer more powerful and modern engine.

Problem is that I am having a hard time securing the engine bracket.  So without the bracket, which will allow me to test fit a newer engine and make a decision based on the body modifications I need to make the project has come to a halt.

Since space on my garage floor is at a premium any project which comes to a halt gets relegated to the rafters.  Hopefully she will not be hanging up there too long?!

New cables for the frame part 2

OK finished the frame cable install today and here is the latest set of photos and commentary.

So yesterday I was talking about how much of a challenge running the new cables was (especially the shifter cables) due to the individual pipe/channels that were designed in this scoot.   Here is a picture which shows the main problem area.

This is hardly recognizable unless you are looking up into the front fork tube of a scoot from this generation but here is what is going on.  This is the bottom of the front fork tube.  The shiny ring is where the bottom bearings will run.  In the bottom center of the photo just above the red spot of primer you can see the clutch cable which runs freely at this point down the fork tube.  Just to the right of that you can see the steel tube which encases the two shifter cables and at this point also the throttle cable.  With all three of those cables running inside of that tube it is very tight and the cables do not want to move at all.   This is made worse by the fact that new modern cables and housings are slightly larger than  the old ones so the space is just crammed full.  At the point of this photo you can see a hole in that steel tube.  I have a copper wire running from outside to inside and in the background you can see one of the shifter cables which remains inside.  This hole is where the throttle cable exits the tube and continues to the back of the scoot on its own course.  The two shifter cables remain inside the tube for the rest of the journey to the back of the bike.  As the throttle cable comes out of the tube at this point is gets pinched trying to exit the tube.  Not so pinched that it inhibits the inner from moving freely but pinched enough that the throttle cable outer can not be slid up and down.  Making any adjustments to the throttle cable is very difficult. Because of all of this complication there is no way the front fork can be installed until of the electrics, the engine and cables are set.  So this scoot is going to be in a waiting pattern for a while until I solve the engine question.

In yesterday's post I talked about putting grease on the outers to help the cables navigate these tight spaces.  Here is a photo of the greased cable outer ready to enter the tight down tube in the front fork.  After getting the first cable down the tube the second one was much easier due to the grease.  It will also protect the cables inside the tube over time.

Also yesterday I talked about clamping a vice grip on the end f the copper guide wire to secure the two outers tightly together in one train.  Forget that!  A far more simple and very effective answer is pictured here:

After a lot of pulling and teasing the frame cables were complete.

I have the brake cable nearly done as well and will post a few photos of that very soon.  A few quirks on that install as well mostly related to the fact that the new cables are larger in diameter than the original cables.

  

New cables for the frame part 1

So yesterday I ran the cables in the headset and today I started to run the cables in the frame.  This is not an easy task and will need to be completed next time I am in the garage.  Let's first start with the before pictures showing the old cables at the top:

And at the bottom.

And here is a close up of the exact spot where the frame cables exit the bottom of the scooter frame in preparation for being connected to the shifter, clutch and brake.  You can see looking at this picture that unlike the 60s and 70s scooter where the cables run willy nilly inside the floorboard these cables each have a distinct channel in which they run.  For the shifter cables in particular that channel is a steel tube which runs all the way up to the headset.  And it is tight, and it turns, and it gets crusty.  In other words these cables were stuck.  STUCK in place. It took a lot of WD40 being sprayed into this tube and grease being applied to the outside of the new outer as it was being pulled in to place to get things moving.  I attached a vice grip on this end and pulled like it was nobody's business.  Finally the cable broke loose and began to slide out of the tube.  Using the copper wire trick described yesterday I was able to apply a ton of leverage as I pulled.  If it were not for that copper wire the cables themselves would have simply stretched out of shape and deformed (possibly even snapped somewhere in the middle of the tube) making life very sad.   

In the end they will all look great.  Look for a final picture in the next day or so.

Font end cable installations

I am getting prepared to finish building the front fork and re-install it on to the scoot.  However, before that can be done the cabling and wiring need to be finished.  Maybe I could do the cables and wires after the front fork is on but all of those lines run down the font tube in the frame and it seems it will be a whole lot easier to get the cables and wires complete before the fork goes on.

So today we started with the cables.  I have lots of pictures to show how I run new cables which may or may not prove helpful to anyone who might ever look at this page.  Here we go.

First a photo of all the bits.  In the photo you can see the parts which are involved.  The fork and the hub are central as well as the handlebars.  I took a long look at the handlebars to make sure I had the proper connectors on the ends of the cables.  More photos on that later.

I started with the front brake cable.  Here is a photo of the ends of the old cable outers coming out of the top of the fork.  I have removed the inners at this time.  The speedo cable is the one on the bottom with the silver tip.  The top cable is the brake outer.

Once I pull the cable inners I will thread a piece of copper wire (romex) which is 2.5x the length of the existing outer cable down the outer.  It looks like this.  So the copper wire now runs all the way through the existing outer which is still located in the fork.

Since the copper wire is 2.5x the length of the existing outer I then thread the new outer on the copper wire and butt the new outer up against the top of the old outer.  Imagine two cars of a train butted right up against each other on one track.  The two cars are the two outers and the track is the copper wire.  Looks like this.

Now I have the two outers running together on the same long piece of copper wire.  At the top end of the new outer I clamp a vice grip.  This locks the copper wire in place making sure the wire will not pull through the two outers.  The two outers are now linked as one on the copper wire.  Like this.

Now go the to lower end of the old existing outer and start pulling the old outer down and out of the fork.  Grab the outer firmly even kink it in your hand so it is pinching the copper wire which is running inside.  The copper wire is your pulling device moving the old outer down and out and bringing the new outer right behind.  Pull, wiggle, back and forth. pull wiggle.  And after a minute or so the old outer has made it all the way out of the fork.  And low and behold the bottom end of the new outer is right behind.  MAKE SURE THE COPPER WIRE DOES NOT BREAK FREE OF THE VICE GRIP AND PULL THROUGH.  IF YOU LOSE THE COPPER WIRE CONNECTING THE TWO OUTERS YOU ARE SCREWED.

Here is a picture of the new brake cable outer installed coming out of the bottom of the fork. I have the old brake cable outer lying alongside for illustration.  Without using the old outer as a guide and the copper wire as a pulling tool I know of no way you would ever get the new outer through the tight confines and twists of this fork.  The whole operation maybe took 5 minutes. 

Here is the new brake cable outer extending from the top of the front fork with the old outer alongside.  The old speedo cable is still in place running down the inside of the fork.  Installing the inner cable is as simple as some grease and slipping the inner cable into the outer housing.

Here are the tops of the new and the old brake cable lying alongside each other,  Note the different cable ends.  This is the end which fits inside the brake lever.  The old shape was kind of a conical lead deal and the new shapes are the more traditional bronze barrels.  Both fit just fine into the lever as they should.  I will admit that the opening in the lever is worn in a distinct oval shape due to the old cable end.  I may need new levers when I get to that step.

For the speedo cable I had to do a little rebuilding.  I did not purchase a new speedo cable so I took the old inner and the ends of the old cable and installed them in to a new outer housing.  Here is a photo of the new housing with the old inner which will slip inside.  I simply removed the barrel and threaded nut from the bottom of the old speedo cable and installed them on the bottom of the new speedo outer housing.  I will attach the silver tip from the top of the old speedo cable in the same fashion to the top of the new speedo outer.  That will happen when I rebuild the headset in who knows how many months.

And finally here are two shots of the new cables exiting the top and the bottom of the fork.  All in all it is a pretty tidy job.