The welded drama begins.....

Treating the rust, which as it turns out, was a layer of greasy, dusty, gritty crud that once I got to it with some acid, 3M rust dissolver, and a small wire brush a cople of times I uncovered  what was a very haphazard welding job but was all bare metal with an undercoat of a paint that is very much like the colour of rust. I pulled off some of the overlapping metal that wasnt attached to anything with pliers and hope to get in there with a grinder and tidy it up, I'll treat it again and then hit it with some serious primer and cold gal paint. I've felt everywhere in there,  inside and out, and although its done badly, it looks and feels to be solid, My cerncern is that the hole that the cables run through is rough and has worn through the cable outers, I think I will disconnect the cables and pull them back through the frame and really get in there and tidy it up.properly.

K has asked me why I haven't contacted Planet Vespa chasing an explanation, good question, short answer is I don't know, I think I might though, there are a lot of small thing wrong, lazyness, corners have been cut, I can count on my fingers the things that are "new or "reconditioned" and the list of old, worn out or just not there is growing. I did expect these things to a degree and my story is a lot better than some poor people out there. Will contacting them acheive anything? probably not, they have the cash and I have the bike. What will make a difference is if people stop buying these scooters, kill the market and they will go away. If this stops one person from importing a bike then that's a start.
Either way, I love the bike, love working on it, I get a lot of joy from fixing it up bit by bit and with that comes piece of mind, it's something only someone who owns and works on one of these scooters will understand.