Up rooting...

Not much news of late, apologies, I'm in the middle of uprooting the family and heading across state for a few reasons I have covered before today.
The Sprint V has been going quite well, I can't get the image of the scored piston pumping away as I ride along at speed, the engine still has pulling power, uphill and all, and as also mentioned before, I'm giving it some too, a good seize would finalise this 3rd over sized top end and give me a perfect reason to kit it.
Today the wife took the boys to a friends house and I was left alone, after pacing the house to see what else I could do and pack for the first load of the move tomorrow, I thought "fudge this, I'm going for a ride" the weather was about 22 degrees C, cloudy, perfect.
I had some chores to do so off I went. I had to deliver some paperwork so that was first cab off the rank, into town, parked up and job done....except as I merged back into the traffic and rode about 150 metres to the lights, Gloria decided to just humf and die, middle of town, lunchtime, people everywhere, Then I turn the fuel tap on, idiot, a couple of kicks and it's business as usual.
Some groceries and home. Its a 6km round trip direct into town and back.
Trip two. Beer run and a chance to trial the new beer run kit. I pull into the bottlo and park, there is a guy delivering ice out of a van parked next to me, he goes in with his delivery and I follow. He sees me grab a box of stubbies and when I go to pay he's standing there with a big grin on his face, the bottlo guy says "what's up mate?"
Ice man "I wanna see how this blokes gonna fit that slab on his Vespa"
Bottlo guy "what!"
Me "It's a trial run"
Bottlo guy "what?"
I pay and head outside. IM and BG follow. I get out the taped up deck off cuts and an occy strap.
I look at them and they are both doing the nodding, furrowed brow and pursed lip look.
IM " looks like you've got it sussed mate, just wrap a leg around and she'll be right"
BG no comment
Me " Yup should do the trick" and it did.
Trip three. I needed some cash and a six pack of beer for the two young blokes that are going to help me load up the truck with furniture tomorrow, can't sacrifice a six pack of my favorite, well I could but didn't want too.
I took this opportunity to indulge myself on my favorite take away lunch and then headed back home, the tradies finishing off the house up the road all had a snicker as I zoomed past again, first groceries, a box of beer and then some KFC, I can just hear them at smoko, "Bet that bloke's missus is out of town today, he he he"
3750kms and dreaming of a 177cc kit, still putting up with the rattles and still loving it.

age old issue

Fuel, check. spare oil, check. tools, spares odds and ends, check, wallet, phone, keys, check.
OK lets go, wait! we might need to take .......beer, Spring is here and it's inevitable that sometime, somewhere there will be a requirement for a cold frosty ale.
You never know when your numbers up for the beer run, I have taken the the rear rack on the GT200 for granted and this got me thinking. I NEED to be able to carry at least one box.
No stuffing about, we are not here to fuck spiders, so I set the task of "How" and the following is the result.

Three offcuts of 19mm decking, taped together, should do the trick, still to be put into practical use, but you never know when the wife is going to say "FFS I asked you to bring home more beer" I'm sure it happens....somewhere. Throw in an occy strap, and it ain't going nowhere .Gold.

Rear shock shock

I knew the rear shock lower rubber bush was old as I could see the cracks in it, so I got a replacement.
In true form, what I found when I pulled it off to change it, was dodgy. The rubber was old and stuffed, the bolt was rusted to hell and when I cleaned it up a little I could see why, it had obviously been a 10mm bolt the they had "machined" down to a 9mm with an angle grinder, nice. It was also bent to hell and the nut was a random different size to the hex head on the bolt and to top off this fine piece of bodgery, the centre tube was a hacksawed piece of 10mm pipe, complete with a few dents from installing it with a hammer and a screwdriver, quality stuff.
Getting it out was easy enough, a bit of a juggling act that I could've used an extra pair of hands for, I used a bearing puller and an old nut, firstly pushing the pipe out and then utilising a 21mm socket and the puller again to get the rubber out.
Installing the rubber was ok, I cleaned up the inside with some fine sand paper and used some soapy water to ease the end in and again with the puller and socket squeezed it into place. After some time spent cleaning , sanding and filing the pipe back to some sort of decent shape I re-installed it too as for the bolt I threw that into the tool box and replaced it with an 8mm stainless bolt until the 9mm I ordered arrives.

After reading an interesting thread on the Modern Vespa website regarding gearbox oil,
http://modernvespa.com/forum/topic90043
I decided to give it a go, I had been using a mineral 30W 2T oil as recommended by Piaggio back in the day, that and I had laying around after my initial break in period, which we all now know was most likely a waste of time, but I will need it again when I get a new cylinder kit further down the track.
The 75W-85 fully synthetic was a very light colour compared to the 30W and it will be interesting what colour it comes out in 1000kms. The shifting has improved though, noticeably up and down the range, very smooth.
3540kms on the clock and I must admit I have been riding a little harder and despite the condition of the top end, she still goes pretty well, worse case scenario is I seize it up and have to get a new cylinder and piston, I'm going to do that anyway, well that is worst case unless I stuff the crank and then it might get interesting. I have also got hold of a cylindrical registration sticker holder, the old one was hanging off the side just waiting to be broken off, this one tidys up the rear end and since I moved the Plate up and removed the little silver rear flap thing that came on the scooter, the rattling has lessened somewhat, there is still a rattle that is coming from underneath, possibly the stand, will look into replacing some hardware and a rubber stop or two, that might fix it.

The boys just practicing until dad finally lets them both ride Gloria at the same time, not sure this will ever happen in my lifetime, what would I be riding?? Maybe get them a Lambretta to thrash, I mean learn to scoot on. (add smiley face thingy here) and then get a busted bum Vespa to build so they can have the joys of getting and keeping a scoot running, and if the current trend continues, something else to fight over.......