Sunday, October 17, 2010

Autumn pumpkin picking in New England

My girlfriend and I took the P200 on a wonderful country ride today to get out of the city and pick ourselves up a pumpkin to carve for halloween.
The farm we went to was fairly commercial - they had a small grocery store selling bananas on the site. But it was one of the few places in the area which let you go into the field to pick your pumpkin, rather than just having them prepicked at a stand.

The ride was wonderful - high 60s, mostly sunny, and the leaves were really starting to near full bloom!


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Here's a picture of my girlfriend with the scooter at the farm:

The pumpkin patch. Look at that sky!
We found a decent little pumpkin we'd be able to carry back. Here's our catch on Old Rusty!
The clouds there were pretty interesting - their passing constantly changed the perception of the fall colors
Here are some of the beautiful fall colors we saw!

Monday, September 27, 2010

New scooter forum - ScootNewEngland

Today some friends and I officially launched a new inclusive online scooter community for New England riders - ScootNewEngland. We already have a number of members who ride and maintain modern Vespas, vintage Vespas, Hondas, Yamahas... you name it.

I'm very proud to be a part of this. Check it out!

Thursday, July 29, 2010

Freeing the beast

So, here's an interesting story. The P200E has a single cylinder 200cc engine. To feed this (relatively) large engine, Piaggio provided a 24mm aperture carburetor on the machine. However, in 1980, in order to pass tighter emissions laws, Piaggio restricted the engine on the P200s by using a 20mm carburetor. The 20mm carburetor was paired with an airbox (which sits between the carb and the intake) which had an oval shaped opening into the crank area.

Now, most owners over the years swap the 20mm carb on their P200s out for a 24mm, not so much as an "upgrade" but a "return to stock". The catch is, the opening on the bottom of the 24mm carburetor into the crank area is circular. Because the 20mm carb airbox has an oval opening which is smaller than the circular opening on the 24mm carb, modification to the airbox is necessary to take advantage of the larger carb.

Basically the airbox opening blocks off part of the opening of the 24mm carb, restricting the volume of fuel/air/oil mix which can move into the crankcase at a given time.

Proper 24mm carburetor airboxes are hard to find, so the better solution is to modify the 20mm one which came on your 1980+ P200.

It just so happens that somewhere in my scooter's life it had indeed been upgraded to a 24mm carb. However, whoever did the upgrade didn't think through what they were doing and no modification was made to the airbox. So I took it upon myself to finish the job, and make my 1980 P200E a 1970s P200E. It's pretty easy. What I did was take the carb and airbox off the engine. I took the gasket which sits between the carburetor and the airbox, and positioned it as it should sit in the airbox. I then took a permanent marker, and marked the part of the airbox which was obstructing the opening on the gasket (in blue below).



I then took a dremel with a gentle grinder tip, and went to town. This took some care, because on the underside of the airbox there is a channel for oil to be pumped into the carb, and it runs near this opening. The opening of the airbox is also tapered on the underside to match up with the opening on the crankcase. I'm not sure how critical it is to try to mimic the taper when grinding the opening bigger, but I figure the fuel system is a pretty important part of the function of the engine, and wanted to do it right. So I took quite a bit of time with the grinder bit followed by a polishing bit to really machine it to match the opening of both the carb and the crankcase.

I didn't get a good shot of the underside, but I think I did a good job machining the opening to have just the right taper to it. No more restriction here!


Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Big things in the works

So a lot to update on since the last post. First of all, the glovebox is finished being painted:


I also got new tires in the mail for it. VERY good price on some good michelins. The previous tires were these crusty old whitewall Sava tires, and the rubber was splitting right along the transition between the white and black rubber. The new tires were a pain to get on, but a little bit of soapy water rubbed along the inner surface of the split rims helped them slide into place (I've since read that it is better to use baby powder or the like to prevent rust, but you live and learn).

So, with the glovebox mounted and the new tires on, I've got a complete P200!

Thursday, July 8, 2010

The left floorboard has been finished. When I got it, this side was grimed up, chipped, and rusty above and below. I just used a fine sandpaper to sand the rusty spots down to metal. I then applied POR-15, let it dry, sprayed some primer on and painted over the whole shebang.

Here are some shots from before and after. The floor rails were put back on, but I thought this was a clearer way of showing the progress.

Friday, July 2, 2010

front end work

To replace the front fender (which was all bashed up) you have to drop the front fork. While I was at it, I did a little rust treatment on the fork before mounting the new freshly painted fender.

Here's a shot of the Vespa with the head-set loose prior to dropping the fork:
Here are some shots of the fork before and after a little surface rust treatment:


























And here is a shot of the fork remounted with the freshly painted fender on!

Monday, June 28, 2010

paint work

With the help of a friend with a sandblaster I got the ugly sea-foam green paint stripped off and have been re-spraying those parts in "milano red". I'm sad to say I used DupliColor brand paint, and my impression is that this was a bad choice. It looks like it chips VERY easily. My guess is this will need another paint job in a few years...

Here's a before shot of the horncast:










And here is an after shot - it's hard to capture the real color indoors with a flash:














And here's a shot of the left cowl:

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

The Vespa P200E

Here is the introduction to my first vintage Vespa, a 1980 P200E, with about 8,000 original miles.

The P200E is an air-cooled 200cc 2-stroke Vespa, and the last of the Vespa line to be sold in the US before Piaggio pulled out of our market prior to the modern ET2 and ET4 Vespas. The P-series is also the last of the manual transmission Vespas produced by Piaggio. P200s like mine are known for their more "brick-like" 80s styling when compared to early 60s Vespas, but they are also known for being arguably the most reliable of the vintage Vespa models. They have a 12V electronic ignition system, an auto-lube system which mixes 2-stroke oil with the gas from a separate tank, and fairly modern suspension. The recently deceased Giorgio Bettinelli rode his PX200 roughly the equivalent of 6 times around the world. The engine is off-centered to be accessible on the right side of the scooter, while on the left side there is a hidden spare tire.

Here I'll be documenting my entry into the world of classic Vespas!


First step - to repair the damaged front fender and repaint the VERY cheap sea-foam green body parts (the paint looks better in the pictures).





I'll be using the following sites as resources:
Vespamainenance.com - a website basically dedicated to maintaining this specific model, and Scooterhelp.com