Arwen's meanderings

Hi everyone and welcome to my dinghy cruising blog about my John Welsford designed 'navigator' named Arwen. Built over three years, Arwen was launched in August 2007. She is a standing lug yawl 14' 6" in length. This blog records our dinghy cruising voyages together around the coastal waters of SW England.
Arwen has an associated YouTube channel so visit www.YouTube.com/c/plymouthwelshboy to find our most recent cruises and click subscribe.
On this blog you will find posts about dinghy cruising locations, accounts of our voyages, maintenance tips and 'How to's' ranging from rigging standing lug sails and building galley boxes to using 'anchor buddies' and creating 'pilotage notes'. I hope you find something that inspires you to get out on the water in your boat. Drop us a comment and happy sailing.
Steve and Arwen

Wednesday, 11 May 2011

occasionally we go off boat topic

....and talk about our other love (other than Arwen) ..........'Stacey'!


lets face it - this is a cute scooter
rough around the edges and in need of a little TLC

Now 'Stacey' is our father/son (and Grandad) restoration motovespa 125 super circa 1970. We bought her off Ebay....in a moment of weakness when the father sucumbed to some very clever and subtle manipulation by his 15 yr old son without realising it!

Anyway, 'Stacey' has been stripped down, her inner bits being stored in boxes. Her main frame has been off to the sand blasters (thanks Lee) and a very clever man called Ian has helped weld her undersides back to new, installing a new floor, repairing some gungho repairs done by a previous owner and generally tidying her up. (I'm a perfectionist but I can take lessons from Ian! Wow!)


all that currrently remains of 'Stacey' in our garage
the damp patch.....I tipped the engine on one side and discovered where the oil drain is !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

She's now just gone to the paint sprayers Chris and Ryan. The colour chosen is a metallic candy apple red with white rubber trims. Not my choice of colour....but hey it's not my scooter and so I take a back seat on this one!!!!!  Chris and Ryan are another set of perfectionists who have just set up a part time spraying business and they are good - really talented. and they are restoring cars - a 1970 VW campervan and a Chevy from the 1950's........so cool!

Whilst trying to sort out what we need to replace and where to go to get it (what a nightmare if you are new to something and have no idea where to begin or what you are looking at.......bit like starting to build a boat for the very first time - dur - remember than feeling folks?)....we discovered that the wiring didn't match up to the old log books we found. Huh!


the outer flywheel which covers the stator plate...I never knew I could get this technical!

Anyway, two vespa forums came to our rescue - the equivalent of John's yahoo forum. Boy have these guys saved our necks. we can now confirm that the scoot has been converted from a 6v system to a 12v system with electric ignition......only a previous owner left all the horn, bulbs, switches etc at 6v ......which is why nothing works!


there are some real powerful magnets somewhere in here

It's taken us a month to work all this out!
Huh!

We'll be assembling 'Stacey' minus engine in a few weeks time. If you'd like us to do another post on her here then let us know. This blog is about Arwen....but occasionally Angharad the canoe and 'Stacey' the vespa may well sneak in!



Steve

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