Oh Yeah... I finished the build. It ran great for a while then one day it wouldn't kick over after work. I figured it had seized but when I tore the engine down the entire cylider walll around the intake port was destroyed. I have NO idea how this happened as it drove perfectly fine to work that day.

I said "screw it" and splurged on an LML 5 port with electronic ignition. Perfect fit. Starts and runs like a dream except for a bogging and backfire at full throttle I am still trying to figure out.

International Scooter BBS

The BBS Forum saved me yet again. I unwrapped the SABEC rear shock that I bought a couple years ago and saw right away it was 2 inches shorter than the existing one. Once again, due to the 10" wheels on my odd little T4. I thought I would either have to buy another new shock (if I could find one) or rebuild the existing rusted out one.

A kind soul pointed out that I could buy an extender for the SABEC and still use it. Fantastic! And he provided a link to a site in Georgia I hadn't seen before. Very good shipping prices.

So... Cleaned the whitewalls tonight, Front hub will have new bolt this week, front spring is getting powder coated, picking paint color and maybe get the scooter painted this week. Just gotta finish the carb rebuild (again) and wait for the paint to be done and start putting it all back together in times for its 50th birthday Party! It would be very cool to have it together by the first day of Summer...

If your working on a Scooter, don't be afraid to ask: http://www.scooterbbs.com/

Did I mention the Kickstart quadrant was snapped?

Yes, it was sheared off. Probably by the kids who inherited it after the engine seized. Seized very well evidently...

I replaced the kickstart quadrant gear with the only one I could find, out of an old PX200. It fit (YAY), but the splines for the pedal are different than the original (BOO), so when I put on the stock pedal, it ends up pointing up into where the side pod goes...nasty and unworkable. Much pouting ensued.

Thanks to Dennis at ScooterMD in Vancouver (which seems to have disappeared!), I found that ScootRS has a special pedal that is angled to allow me to use the new gear quadrant. It worked great so THANK YOU DENNIS!

Muffler Bolt: The Hard Way

Why do I do everything the hard way? Maybe the next scooter will be easier.

The saga of the snapped bolt:

The Vespa rebuild was coming along fine. I was done rebuilding the engine and the next task was to remove the snapped steel bolt in the aluminum engine casing. This bolt holds the muffler in place under the Vespa and had been sheared off by the last owner. I decided upon drilling a hole and then using a hardened steel 'easy out' with reverse threads to torque out the old bolt. In advance I soaked the bolt in WD40 and heated it up with a blow drier. I then snapped off the easy out and filled the area with a blue streak of curses a mile wide. After much (much) grief I determined the only way to get the bolt and easy-out removed was by grinding out with a dremel tool at 30K rpm with a aluminum oxide grinding head. It worked, kinda, but not really. Not deep enough to really work. Damn. I ended up taking it to a machine shop to drill out the HARDENED steel not-so-frakking-easy-out and having a helicoil put in. Hang on to your hats: $200 Canadian. @#^&%$ . Looks just GREAT now (see pic) ! It better! I only paid 100$ for the VESPA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Why this happened: A steel bolt in an aluminum casing will 'weld' over time due to the galvanic cell the two metals create. 50 years qualifies as "over time". If I had used a propane torch I may have been able to loosen it. I have been told that aluminum oxide would eat the steel away as well and leave the aluminum. Hmmm. More toxic chemicals I could have played with!

This was a classic case of a 10 minute job turning into 10 hours of frustration and 200$. Sweet lord protect me from myself....

Bead Blasting vs Toxic Chemicals

When I started restoring my T4, there was no bead blasting shop in town. The sand blasting folks looked at the legshield and laughed mightily and proclaimed that their powerful weaponry would go through the tin like Superman's snot through wet kleenex. So I spent a very long time inhaling PolyStrippa, absorbing it through my skin and generally taking a few years off my life to get the multiple layers of paint off the scooter. The primer was especially nasty.

Now, several years later, there is a shop that does metal, glass and even walnut shell blasting dirt cheap. It would have cost me less than what I spent in poly strippa not to mention the time spent doing it and the time removed from my life. And it would have been done better and faster.

I did just get my hubs, swan neck tail light, head set and the little metal plate where the fork bolts to the front fender done. Fast. Cheap. Damn. Now I am addicted to blasting stuff. He has my front spring and a heating grate from my kitchen (which is going to get powder coated). Yay EZ Blast (Regina)!

Some Clutch tips

Here is a good tip: Be damn careful when removing your clutch. Underneath the clutch on the shaft is a woodruff key that the clutch slot slides over. When the clutch is removed, this little piece pictured here could easily fall out and INTO the whirly gear parts of the engine requiring a much bigger job to split the case. My advice, make sure the key is turned to the TOP of the engine when removing the clutch and plug the gaping holes into the engine with a rag.


<-- Potentially Evil little chunk





Also, the castellated nut that holds the clutch in place is not that tight but I HIGHLY recommend buying the tool shown here for properly removing it. If yours is bashed up like mine was, replace the nut and its lock washer that it sits in. Small price to pay and you will thank yourself for it in the future.



Here is a before and after of the clutch nut. Looks like a chisel was used in the past to tighten and loosen it.







Also, no need to buy a clutch compressor; a few washers and a bolt work just fine! Save that money for a round of Beers!

For $#&^% Sake: Adventures with Oil Seals

So I had an oil leak at the rear hub. I took off the hub and saw that there was a spacing of about 2 mm between the bearing and the seal. I ranted and raved on the INTL SCOOTERIST BBS FORUM (www.scooterbbs.com) about how the bearing must be different, the seal is wrong, please help me. Some very kind souls named Bluecati, DS and MDchanic pointed out gently how dumb I was... the seal works on the wheel drum hub, not the bearing face. If you don't know what I am talking about, trust me, I was stupid. I even made the nice attached picture to show the problem. The real problem was my brain. Again, the smooth hub slides over the grooved shaft and the seal (removed for this pic) works on it. I would also mention that the castellated nut is reverse threaded and I spent 45 minutes before I remembered that but the humiliation would be too much. So now I just need to caliper the hub and ensure I get the right oil seal inside diameter. The good news is that with this fix and some carb work, the engine is complete!