Word check

I just read over my last post....WTF! is unseasonable even a word? It should say unseasonal, I think unseasonable probably means that you can't put salt and pepper on it and everyone knows the rain hates pepper.

EDIT: Turns out it is and I was right.

un·sea·son·a·ble

  /ʌnˈsizənəbəl/ [uhn-see-zuh-nuh-buhl]

–adjective

1.

not seasonable; being out of season; unseasonal: unseasonable weather.

Bring on the weekend

I have the box of parts so I can't wait to get into it. I have the scoot over 1300kms now and still haven't had any problems, well except that my whole headlight gave up the ghost yesterday, luckily the little parking globe puts out enough light for drivers to see me, that and the plume of two stroke smoke out behind me and the sound of someone strangling a chainsaw at 100 paces. The only big problem I do have is the weather forcast, stormy for the next week, very unseasonable, especially for Victoria at the start of summer. good workshop weather though.

Box of goodies.

Well I made a call yesterday to GPS Imports and my package is in the mail, it's been a month since I ordered the bits and pieces and I must admit I am looking forward to next week, my wife and boys will be away for two days in Melbourne, they are going to a Wiggles concert, cue Toot Toot Chugga Chugga, on Sunday and to the Zoo with my wifes family on Monday and home Tuesday. I will be fixing my oil leak by attempting to change an O-ring that is in a slightly difficult spot, I will be putting together 3 brand new tyres, tubes and rims, taking off and pulling apart the old rims, out of interest, to see just how rusty they are, stopping the headlight from twisting around, again, replacing the headlight globe that has blown the low beam element and causes the tail light globe to blow everytime I put a new one in, might change the gearbox oil and clean the sparkplug and probably give her a wash to get the bugs off the leg shield, then I might crack a beer and just sit there and look at her.
I've clocked over 1200kms now and the old girl will sit on 80 nicely now after that though the acceleration is slow, the engine doesn't feel as tight now and when kicking it over the compression is still very good. the most kicks it has taken is 3 to get it started and that was on a cold morning, she idles well and the bottom line is i couldn't be happier with the scoot. Ive still got about six weeks left of my warranty period and intend of getting as many kms as possible behind me just in case, the trouble isj ust about every chance I get to ride her, it bloody rains.

Business as usual

Today I reached the scoots first real milestone, I fixed the headlight so that the small globe was at 6 o'clock and noticed that the low beam element of the main globe had blown, no biggie the spare globes are on their way, high beam still works.. So I rolled the bike out onto the driveway and the spots of rain started, I had checked the weather and it was to be coudy with possible showers, so I went against my fair weather riding rule and went out anyway, the spots persisted for a while, on and off, and finally cleared, the wind was cool and I was a happy man. I putted about town for about 25kms until I clicked over the 1000km mark and went to fill up, added my 3% and with a full tank away I went.

 I rode down to Paynesville where I met an english guy a few weeks ago that owns a cafe there, he had invited me to come along for a coffee sometime, I thought that time should be now. He waved as I pulled in and parked up in front of his cafe, sharing some quality two stroke fumes with some of his patrons, He was all smiles and happy to have a real scoot out the front, He showed me his collection of old Vespa and Lambretta posters  inside and I had a nice coffee, He tells me he has to convince his wife he needs to trade the old modded up auto scoot for a classic, he also tells me the guy that runs the ferry across to Raymond Island has got his hands on a P150 and a plan was hatched to try and get a bit of a group of scoots together for a ride, I told him I had a riding buddy that I saw occasionally for a nice lunch run somewhere so we were already amassing troops.

The greasy roads gave me a new experience, sliding and locking up and that uneasy feeling you get when your bike moves in directions you don't want it to while going through a roundabout.

While it was still spitting rain, I approached a roundabout, I was on the crossroads to a major, for a quiet country town, street that always has people cruising along at a fair rate of knots. As I approached I was confronted by the speed vs distance vs the can I make it scenario, the answer was the car was going faster than I thought and braking ensued, not the emergency type, but because of the rain it almost became that. I can't fault the rear brake, it does the job and well, in this case I locked up for around almost two metres and came to a stop with my front tyre over the line and a WTF are you doing look from the lady driver of the car. Phew.

The other was on a dual lane roundabout I was alone in both lanes for at least 500 mtrs behind me so I took some liberty in the roundabout and took an imaginary lane right in the middle of the lanes, which included the painted line, front tyre hits and slides, rear tyre hits and slides, I hit the throttle and once I get out of the roundabout, re-think how I will ride in the wet next time before I end up in a tangled bleeding mess. Note to self. Not Valentino Rossi.

I did approx. 140kms today and took a few photos, because everyone likes photos, So the Pic run down.

First Pic. Bairnsdale City sign that everyone sees when they head into town on the Princes Hwy from Melbourne.

Second Pic. Same deal but me being more "artistic".

Third Pic. Little known fact, Just about every Aussie has had a four 'n twenty meat pie, but didn't know that they are baked in Bairnsdale, interesting I know, another equally useless fact is another good old favorite icon was and is made where I grew up in Lithgow, N.S.W. .......The Tic Tac.....awesome.

Pic Four, This is a classic example of the roads around Bairnsdale where I have been able to run Gloria in ever so gently.

Pic Five, another local shot in Lindenow, The Mitchell river runs through Bairnsdale and is sourced from the melting snow in the Victorian Alps, if there is a lot of rain the river floods and dumps a crap load of topsoil on the river flats, the local farmers grow fruit and vegetables in what is one of the main vegetable growing regions of the State. Means we get some great fresh produce all year round. Gotta love living in the sticks.

Pic Six. The celebratory ale for no real reason, but the 1000kms and official run in period over is a good enough reason , 1100kms , I may as well have two, or three.

Box of goodies will be arriving next week and I can't wait to get the new tyres and rims on and the old ones off to have a look, I have already been a little surprised by the wear on the "new" tyres, they are new but the quality is questionable.

Watch this space.

Rain Rain go away

I don't intenionally want to ride in the rain, and thats all we have had here since Saturday. I was going to have to leave the scoot at home today as I am getting a new tyre fitted to the GT anyway, should get a run tomorrow, the upside is that I pick up my three new tyres as well. The downside is the things I ordered from GPS in Melb still hasn't arrived, they needed a spare cable set and three new sets of rims to complete the order, when they said they had to order them in, that and old mate was going to Italy and was bringing the cables back with him, I said dont worry with the things you dont have as I was getting stuff from Motorsport Scooters anyway, but he insisted and as a result the box from San Diego arrived three days later and three weeks later I still haven't got my stuff from Melbourne....

900

Rain and domestic duties have hampered the plan. I managed 70 kms yesterday  before the clouds rolled in and my wife left for work, rode it pretty hard though, she easily sits on 70 now and theres more there, I flirted with 75 on occasion and I am surprised, or not really, by how much it shakes and rattles and I am yet to ask someone take a pic of me riding past at 60-65 so I can see how much smoke I am blowing and the colour of course. when idling at the lights or if the wind is right I get a waft of that sweet sweet two stroke. mmmmmm 2T.

Top pic. the rotation of the headlight unit, it works fine so I'll put that on the list for the day I do the oil leak.
Pic two.  the final mirror location, I wanted it to sit differently but it kept moving, I dont think it is supposed to sit this way but I'm used to it now.
Pic three.  The oil drips.
Pic four. 900kms as far as I'm concerned the run is done now, the next tank will be 3%, I dont plan to do any touring for a while so I will gradually test the engine but will wait a while before I put her through a full steam ahead trial.
The weather gave me an oportunity to go though my manuals and see what I need to do to stop this oil leak, which has progressed to 2 or three drops now, I have put some paper towel down as soon as I park up and the drops are a nice honey colour, after 400 kms I think that is ok, centred with a dark spot which I assume it road crud and brake shoe dust that th oil collects on its way down to the departure lounge where it drips off. Anyway the offender is, for those with a Haynes manual, Page 18 either number 16 the O ring to the clutch cover or, as I was advised 23 which says its a washer but the way I read the instuctions a guy gave me, there is an O ring seal in there too, I will have a good look when I get in there.
No surprises really, I put a link to this blog on a few websites and emails, It is getting a lot of interest from all over the world, mainly Australia, the US and UK, less so Indonesia, Greece, Phillipines, Italy, Vietnam, Canada, Malaysia and Sweden.
Cheers Guys.

Almost

Well yesterday I went out for my ususal ride about town during my lunch break, I parked up at the end and bought my lunch and thought its been a while since I last filled her up,so I took a look, shit there was probably about 250mls in the bottom, lucky I looked, so I ride across the road to the servo, shit only E10 ethanol, nope. next servo was about 500 mtre away, no problem. shit same deal, ethanol, ok the next one was another 750 mtres away, fingers crossed I knew this one had normal unleaded. So I put in 5.5 litres, must have been more than I thought in the bottom, I'm sure the tank is supposed to hold 7.7 litres and it is deceiving but I squeezed another litre in and could've probably put another liter in too but I needed space for the oil so I didn't push my luck I put in approx. 3.5% oil and this should get me to 1000kms, the next tank will be 3%. I noticed a difference straight away in the performance, a minor one anyway, the engine sounded better and felt smoother, wasn't idling as rough, and a noticable surge when I changed the gears and I've noticed that she like a constant throttle, even if just a little.
My confidence is getting better, still a bit shaky with the hand signalling and part of that is because everyone drives 20kms faster than me and no-one is used to a vehicle that doesn't have indicators, so they assume you are not turning, this has made me much more aware of whats going on around me and I'm glad I'm not riding in a big city like Melbourne or Sydney, that is just a death wish. anyway each time I ride it gets easier but I am a long way from turning a corner whilst indicating, changing gears, texting, smoking a cigar, eating a burger and still looking cool.
The speedo now reads 825kms.

Apples and Oranges

I decided to ride the GT in to work today and I could not believe the difference, The solid safe feeling, mirrors you can see out of, indicators, brakes that dont grab, and the quiet engine, the stand I dont have to wrestle with to get the bike up onto and the worst part is ......no-one bats an eyelid when I go by, ignored, may as well not be there. I think I feel safer in traffic on a noisy, smokey rattler that on the ever reliable modern scooter. Two polar opposite rides.
One thing that I did do as an instinct was to go the foot brake that isn't there and pull in the front brake where the clutch should be. I was surprised at that because I have only riden Gloria for a couple of weeks, exclusively though, and i'm happy that it has become almost second nature already. Can not wait until I have another go tomorrow.

Run in almost done.

I have clocked 736 kms so far and through the Modern Vespa website have found a possible cause for the oil leak, an o ring, which should be an easy enough job to replace with the good advice I received,  So I will just keep topping up every few days until the wife takes the boys to Melbourne in a month for a Wiggles concert, I'll have a day off, the whole garage to play in and only the dog to annoy me. Might even shout myself some prawns and a few beers too.
The scoot is starting to develop a few little quirks, doesn't like second gear first thing in the morning, no matter how long I warm her up for, and a funny humming buzz sound when I hit 60km/hr, I think I found the cause of that, the headlight unit has vibrated around 90 degrees within the chrome cover, the little globe was at the bottom, now it's at 9 o'clock. She sits nicely on 60 now and after 65-70 doesn't seem to want to go much faster, I still have 250 kms until I want to drop the oil to 3% but I just filled the tank so next fill up I will drop the oil amount, I think this will make a difference to the power, I still haven't dared try 80 yet, maybe after 900kms I will. At least I have ditched the yellow vest, I can sit with traffic fine now so dont really need it, unless I plan to hit the open road where the speed limit is 80 or more. I hope to have past the 1000km mark by the end of the weekend,. although we are having a bbq on sunday so there will be no riding after that, maybe mid week next week then.

The centre of attention, again.

I gave you all the bike details, but the day out was great, It was sunny, I got sunburnt hands, a gentle breeze to start with and I had all sorts of attention, tooting of horns, waves and thumbs up, I was passed by two guys towing a trailer and the guy in the passenger seat was clawing at the window like a rabid dog, about 10 minutes later in town, he was almost run over trying to wave me down, he was so excited and I got the twenty questions, his mate was very interested too but more contained, while I was talking to these two another guy pulls over behind me, jumps out, he is an English guy about my age, He goes on and tells me how his Dad used to own a scooter shop in England years ago and he was apart of the second round of scooter popularity and was in the market for a Lambretta, He owns a Cafe in Paynesville that aparently has the walls adorned with scooter pictures and bits and bobs, So I was invited to park up anytime I wanted and talk scooters over a coffee. He said he had a cheap chinese scoot that his mates gave him shit over, so he asked me to do a drive-by and flip them the bird for him....He took a picture of the bike and told me I had made his day, I didn't stop in for a coffee but I certainly intend to. I stopped in town for a quick break from the seat and to give my wrist a rest, A guy and his little girl walked past " thats a nice scooter mate" "thanks mate", I even got a nod from a Harely rider....happy days.

The run in weekend done.

Yesterday I managed 231kms over 5 & 3/4 hrs, with one fuel and lunch stop. It was a long day in the saddle but a good one. Now as I said Gloria had a moment, after about 30kms I was heading up a slight incline and she had a backfire or two and felt sluggish, increasingly, so I just pulled in the clutch and pulled over, the bike stalled and I thought "f*ck, here we go" I was a good 15kms from home an wasn't in the mood for a push. I put the bike on its stand and did the hands on hips look for about 10 seconds...give it a kick and see I thought, she kicked over as smooth as and idled away, cool, So I abandoned my plan to tackle some of the brilliant backroads and headed back into town, at worst If she shits herself and dies I'll be a max of 4kms from home, thats walkable.
I headed back into town and the bike never missed a beat, that was weird so I continued to putt about 40-50kms, up to 60kms per hour at intervals, the bike did feel sluggish and not as responsive as before, but otherwise fine, I'm thinking it was maybe a small carby blockage that sorted itself out?? I dont really know so I will do a bit more reading and see if i can find a similar story.
Anyway I continued on for another 200 odd kms, no dramas, It was mostly flats and, as the afternoon wore on, the wind picked up but I kept going. once I got to 500 kms the brief was to hold it between 50 and 60 and occasionally up to 80, I was a bit nervous about going to 80 just in case I killed the scoot, and possibly myself, but I flirted with 65-70 a number of times and thought it best not to push it beyond that, on the first time I hit 70 the bike jumped out of gear, but I realised it was because I was hanging on too tight and sort of crouching down a bit, you all know the look, I popped her back in and away I went.
So today I just took it out for and hour or so, kept her on 60 and up to 70 every now and then, I'm still getting used to the noised and rattles and also the suspension at speed, you feel every bump and it feels like every bump is way bigger than it is. I did 80kms today bringing the total to 632kms all up. No major issues today either, I stalled once and overshot one corner but avoided hitting anything, a good wake up call that I'm actually not an awesome super duper rider on a F1 roadbike.
The new mirror is great, it's still new but as it gets a bit of tiny dust bits in the ball and socket joint it will need to be adjusted often, I had the same problem with the mirrors on the GT, they are fine now.
As soon as I got home I dumped the oil, put a few squirts in to rince out the leftover stuff the colour was as expected and in the afternoon sun I could see the tiniest of tiny flecks, which I think is normal with metal on metal at speed.

So...

552 kms, and all is well....I think, after 30 odd kms I had a moment where Gloria thought "That's it" and I had to clutch in and pull over, not sure if it was a soft seize or a fuel hiccup, is it even possible to seize an engine doing 40-50kms per hr using 4% oil ratio...??? 170kms later it's all good.
Anyways...The pics are the rear wheel with the oil splatered on both sides, I have to get that sorted,quick smart.
I have a story about the days riding and all the shenanigans, but it can wait until tomorrow.
Note to self...put on gloves when riding in the fine Victorian spring weather and you wont get the ghastly uneven hand/wrist glove tan line and more importantly when changing the bbq drip tray, don't subsitute the granular kitty litter with the recycled paper stuff, it catches fire, funnily enough.
Will go intp more detail tomoz.

the plan

So the plan is to do as much riding as I can, Gloria has done 321kms just around town, to and from work the long way, at lunchtime and every other opportunity I could get in between work and family stuff, I have a fresh 5ltrs of fuel in, what I did first up was put in 5 ltrs, the size of my jerry can, and then another ltr in after about a week. before I added the new fuel I had a look and guessed there was about a ltr left in the bottom of the tank, so 185 by 5ltrs....37 kms a litre, not sure thats right, I checked the service manual it says when they tested the engines originally, under ideal conditions, i.e. one up, 30kms on a dry flat road with a temperature between 5 & 25 degrees cel. and wind of up to 2mtrs per second at 55km per hr, they got between 34-45 kms. good I'm on track.
I have been doing all the riding on mostly flat roads so far, but the thing is I live in a small country town (around 15000 people) in the east of Victoria, 20kms from the coast in one direction and and the Vic alps and Mt Hotham in the other direction, so there are a few good hills around that can't be bypassed, I'm not sure this is good while running in, but I live at the top of a hill, so I dont have a choice, either does the bike.
I will report back later.

I can see..

I got my box of goodies from Motorsport Scooters yesterday so I took off the mirrors last night and put on the new mirror, I have a pair but I'm going to just try the RHS one on it's own first, It took a bit to get right, but I think I will need to actually get out on the road to get the adjustment right. Taking the mirrors off has left a void, when you are used to having them there, but I will get used to it, at least now I will be able to see whats going on behind me now.
I got a new Piaggio badge, as a spare and also to see how it differed from the one that Planet Vespa put on, I like the new one better.

More pics from Vietnam

These are after the bike was painted, I did ask for a heap of pics before and after the paint job, but the guy I was dealing with was in Melbourne when the bike was stripped and painted, so I only got the ones they must take for everyone as a standard. I wanted to know how many kms it had done when they found it and a few other things but didn't end up getting that info. which is a shame because if nothing else I wanted as much history of the bike as I could get for this blog and my own peace of mind as to the condition of the bike. anyways.....

Some pics from Vietnam.

Here are the photos the guys took after they stripped it down. and one when they found the bike.

Insurance

I had the scoot insured with Shannons $100 excess and the premium was $74.54. Pretty happy with that.
I also noticed a few drips of oil under the bike this morning, I will have to take a closer look when I have more time, but there was oil on the clutch cable connection so its coming from above there, it was only a little bit and from what I have read I few drops is normal. I will keep an eye on it anyway.
The bike has been getting a lot of attention whenever I take her out, waves, smiles, thumbs up, its great but I just have to remind myself its the bike getting the attention and not me. I was approached by a woman at the motor registry the other day that invited me to come along to the local vintage car and motorbike club meeting next week, she said that it was just a group of old blokes sitting around wingeing and bitching and talking about where they can drive to next and get a good cup of tea, but she said it was a lot of fun, so I just might go.

Down to business

So now all the official things are out of the way, I have the run in to do. Plans are for as much riding as possible in as short a period as possible, My sister-in-law is coming up from Melbourne on the weekend and my wife isn't working on Saturday so I intend to have the run-in complete by Sunday afternoon. I have 252kms on the clock at the moment a few short trips before the weekend should see it tick over 300 and two solid days over thw weekend should get me to 700-800kms, at 40-50kms an hour that will be two solid days indeed.
I broke down the shipping crate and the timber was crappy and mismatched and held together with no less tha 500 rusty nails of evry size you could imagine and I was surprised to find a bizzare looking cocoon and a weird web around it, unfortunately I didn't take a picture, so fearing a catastrophic plague of vietnamese man eating moths I tested its strength with my hammer, it failed miserably. Having destroyed it I began thinking what might have happened had the quarantine inspectors found it, not to mention the dirt that was in the tyre treads, the old oil in the casing and the battery, not sure if there is an issue with that but if they wanted to be picky there could be, this is one reason I used an import agent, they already have a relationship with quarantine so the transaction goes smoothly. I could have been up for the excessive costs for cleaning, sterilising, destroying the timber, storage costs and god know what other fees, thankfully for me someone didn't do their job properly that day.

my Pa's work stool.

My Pa had this stool in his little shed, he made it himself and it has been well used, I took it when my Grandma asked me to take everything from the shed so she didn't have to deal with it after my Pa died, I love it, its got scratches, scores, holes and part of the seat has been sawn off, I haven't really used it much other than putting shoes on, until now, and its the perfect height for working on the scoot, and certainly beats sitting on the concrete. Thanks Pa.

On closer inspection.....

While I was laying on the concrete dealing with the screws and nuts for the number plate, I got the torch and had a bit of a look under the chassis....mmmmmm, rust. and a bit of bodywork.
Top photo, you can see a bit of a patch job just near the tyre.
Second, the underside of the seat/fuel tank cavity,
Last, the underside of the left cowl, and the bottom edge of the chassis, this has copped a few knocks over the years by the look of it.
I must admit I expected the scoot to be in this condition, It is well documented that bikes restored in asia are more often than not like thisand some are much much worse. On the plus side, its not as bad as I thought it might be, a few minor cosmetic blemishes, like most things that are nearing 40, the surface rust is just that and can be dealt with and the engine hasn't missed a beat, everything else I've checked is all good.

the number plate discovery.

Well I pulled the number plate cover off so I could measure and drill the new holes, not rocket science but it seemed to take a really long time, anyway, I found a few things, well I found rust in a number of places the four holes that held the chrome number plate on were all a different size and all had rust, which is fair enough I suppose given it had spent the last 39 years in the humidity of Saigon, but if the "new" paint job involved stripping back to bare metal and adding 4 layers of primer and paint, why is there rust....me thinks the paint job might have been a bit half arsed. The little chrome step had green spray paint under it, that tells me that a quick touch up would do the trick before we send it on its way.
top photo, my cable tie job.
second, the mismatched rusty holes
third, the underside of the chrome step covered in paint
last, the finished numberplate and rego sticker. and who im thier right paraniod mind would put thier rego number on the internet.

the cylinder cowl

This is the cylinder cowl, shiny and new....not. it's seen better days but will be replaced, I'll hang onto it as a spare, you just never know when your going to need a cylinder cowl.