Success

So I decided to take a couple of days off and enjoy what was supposed to be a couple of days of clear winter skies in what has been about a month or so of miserable rain and wind, I ordered a new set of points and a new condensor along with a couple of idle jets to try out to see if I could get to the bottom of this starting and idling issue. When I got to the shed with new parts in hand the promised weather had not arrived, so I set about changing these bits over. Flywheel off and I took the top off the wiring junction box so I could take the stator plate off and low and behold this is what I found, in the top picture you can see that the screw securing the black earth wires had vibrated itself off completely and was sitting in the back of the box, also the screw holding the green "hot" wires was as loose as it could be before it too fell out, that explains a lot....My wiring doesn't look that flash in that picture but I've done it myself and I know its solid and functional.
I decided to change out the points and condensor anyway and perhaps keep the old ones as emergency spares. In the second photo you can see the expert wiring connection from the condersor unit to the points, nice work Planet Vespa.
The third photo is the new and old points units, you can see that the bottom one has a slightly bent stem where the fixed point half is located next to the wooden cam thingy, this meant that it could only open a little way which was why I found it hard to clean the points in the first place.
With the new units in place soldered and screwed, I put the flywheel and everything else back on and gave it a kick. Third go she sprang to life and I let her warm up for a minute or so, still having to crack the throttle to keep it running, once it was warm it idled, a bit rough but I wanted to take it for a run before I adjusted the idle. I rode into town and down the same hill I had to bump start it a week ago and she began to burp, fart, backfire so I turned around so I could get back to the top of the hill under her own steam, it wasn't pretty and she gave up the ghost at the top of the hill. Now I'm no soldering guru, in fact I had no confidence in my soldering on the ctop of the condensor at all, since it came off twice before it stuck, in my wisdom I put some electrical tape over my solder with the thought that if it did come loose I could limp home, I'm not even sure what it actually does other than " condense" the spark before it heads out to the coil and then the plug, anyway some reading to do there.
It turns out that the moving part of the points was catching on the tape so through the hole in the flywheel I cut and pulled the tape off and bang she started first kick and ran well, phew and the solder was holding tight, double phew.
I adjusted the idle and off I went, she was like a new bike, the sun came out and I enjoyed a lovely 80km ride. On day two she started second kick but because of the cold took a few goes to stay running, no throttle involved, she idled and warmed up by itself. I refueled and had another trouble free 45km ride, I had to adjust the idle again but that was all.
I just have one thing I need to do and that is to figure out how to gap the points, the gap is bigger than it should be and the only information on setting the gap I can find is for a different points set up, shouldn't be a problem, theres a ton of info out there. I'm pretty happy to have her running well again, now I'm not touching a thing.

Now I get the point

It was a cold but sunny day, the first rain free days in weeks, So I chanced a ride to see how the minor adjusting went, quick answer is, a mixed result.
It burst into life on the fourth kick only to die and not start again, I went through the usual things and eventually got it running, I rode to the end of the drive and onto the road, up the hill, She went well, felt better, so I decided it would be ok to head into town and knock out a few kms. I avoided any traffic lights that involved stopping for a while as I still had to have the throttle slightly cracked to keep it going, after about 30kms I decided to head home, I got to the bottom of theis big hill and she just died, I gave it a couple of kicks to no avail and thought pushing it home from here is really going to suck, about 2kms all up hill, I decided to give it one last try and pushed it halfway up the hill in front of me and turned around and bump started it, it clicked along burping for about 50 metres before it finally started, I headed straight home, but it ran so well I decided to go back into town for a bit longer, such a waste of a nice day, foolish decision? maybe, but it paid off and I did another 20 kms and rode home with no further problems.
Once home I just let it sit over lunch and went to put it away, I tried to kick it to see if it would start, second kick, wow and then it died not to be started, I got her back into the workshop and began pulling the cowls off to have a look, a scooter aficionado, Kelvin, Kickstart Scooters in Brisbane suggested I check the points, the only thing I haven't checked in all this and his advice has gotten me out of trouble a few times over the course of all this, I had trouble seeing them gap in the dimly lit workshop  so I pulled off the flywheel.....Bingo the points were pitted slightly and a teeny piece had dislodged and stuck to the opposite point, meaning they weren't disengaging properly when the flywheel came around, I was surprised it worked at all, So I proceeded to clean them up with some fine wet and dry until they looked ok, I will replace them when I get a chance, but they will still do the job in the mean time, now to wait until the next sunny day to see.....

rain rain

I was still having starting issues and decided to give the carb a good and proper clean out this time, I didn't find anything in the process, I changed out the gasket from in between the airbox and carb , threw in a different needle, I soaked it and blew it through with carb cleaner but I'm not convinced that the cab is the culprit, I did find that the plug gap was well above what it should have been, so I sorted that and put it all back together, I couldn't do any more than this as the persistent rain meant that going for a ride wouldn't be much fun and gassing myself in the small workshop wasn't an option either, once the sun shines again I'll give it another run.
In the mean time I went and got my push bike out of the storage unit and began giving it some much needed love.

Almost right again

I gave the jets another clean and took it out yesterday for a quick run, she went pretty well and started second kick which surprised me, I ended up doing around 25kms and the only hiccup was when going around a corner and perhaps not selecting the right gear, giving it some out of the corner and a couple of times she complained a little by jumping and missing but would soon recover and away we'd go. I'm going to leave it alone now and see how it goes, I'll start riding into work again on the days the weather is favorable and take on the next problem as it arises.

cough splutter burp

I got to look into the starting and idling problems over the weekend, I have a good spark and I know the fuel is getting there as the plug is fouling, the idle is OK but just dies after a minute or two, unless I feather the throttle, I thought Id throw in the old idle jet from the smaller carb I had on it originally, It did idle better and longer but still died. I went for a short ride up the road and she began to stutter and died, I got a few bursts of life trying to get going again, but I eventually rolled/pushed it back the 500m back home, it was for this reason I decided to go up the hill and not down it.
I got back to the shed and decided to give her a birthday since I was most likely going to pull the carb out anyway, I changed the gear oil, I checked and cleaned the plug, it was a little browner than it was after the plug chop, but I did notice that the little nipple on the end was loose? a possible cause? I re-torqued the cylinder head nuts too, which did seem a little loose to me, there was a small leak at the base of the head, another likely cause of the starting problem, low compression.
I disconnected the carb and pulled it down, I found no obvious blockages, there was some crap below the filter screen though, I blew out all the jets and holes as best I could and put it all back together. I did the same run up the hill and it ran a little better, still feels like there is a fuel delivery issue, just seemed to miss every now and then and the acceleration was lacking towards the top of the range 80kmph and up, getting to eighty wasn't a problem, she pulled hard through the gears. I got back and the first thing I did was pull the plug, it was clean as a whistle, it's a new plug, this worries me a bit that I might be a bit lean It still wont idle for long so I set about adjusting the throttle cable nipple along about 3-4mm to open the slide just a small bit at idle and give me some room for idle adjustment, this seemed to work and the idle problem seemed done with. I ran out of daylight so decided to call it a day until the morning.
I checked the weather and decided to ride the Sprint to work, it started after four kicks, OK since it was a cold frosty morning, idle was a tad fast but I would adjust that when the engine was warm. I rode out and down toward town, same running issues as yesterday, so I turned around in case she died and I didn't feel like pushing it home up the hill first thing Monday morning, It didn't stop but I had to keep the revs up and the clutch grabbing to turn around, I lifted the front wheel twice turning around, once home I shut it off and will look at it when I get home, I then proceeded to start the GT200 take off and perform a rear wheel spin 180 degrees and layed it down on the cold wet soft ground.....no harm done but would've looked pretty funny, note to self. Don't give it too much on the wet grass until you get going....

Bit quiet

Sorry, just haven't had the time or the weather to do anything of late, I pulled and cleaned out the jets, tidied up the plug, I have gone back to reset the carb, now I just need to get a short ride in to warm it up and fine tune it, I want to sort the idle issue out, got a good spark and fuel supply is good.
Will get to it in the next few days, I want to take it down to the club meet in Geelong in a couple of weeks, give it a good hit out.

Another milestone problem.

It was a good weekend for riding, cold but dry, I did another fuel usage test and came out with 25.3 kms per litre, I also found out that my tank only holds about 6 litres? sure it should be 7.7, I almost ran out of juice, the level was about an inch above the bottom and when I topped up I put 5.5 in.
On the way home I have a reasonable hill long and continuous grade and I sat on 80 the whole way up, at the top I clutched in and cut the engine and pulled over to have a look at the plug, not as brown as normal, but more of a grey colour, dry and clean. This is where the problem started, I put the plug back in and kicked it into life, she's been a 2-3 kick start since being back in one piece, three this time from a hot start, odd. I had only 200 metres to home so I putted back, In the property I was down to second and just bleeping it to roll round to the shed, I noticed it was running rough.
This morning I must have kicked it 10 times before I got a response, another 3-4 before she started and there was something not right, like she was firing out of whack, mostly running OK but every so often it would skip and be a louder, I didn't have time to go any further into it because I had to leave for work. So I'll have a play when I get a chance, I think the cause may be from when I cut the engine I held the kill switch in for a bit and this may still be contacting while the vibration of the idle shakes the crap out of the bike. It's been running fine and this is the only thing that has been different.

The milestone was 5000kms on the clock, 600 on the new kit, I'm half expecting that she's angling to get back in the shed since it's getting colder, she's not a morning bike for sure.