a motovespa 125 super post mortem

Well, we have poked and prodded her; crawled underneath, over and around and we have finally taken a good long hard look at Stacey, number one son's vespa project since her return form a motocycle garage.

So here we go:

• the throttle cable is wrong in the headset and will have to come out which means removing the headlight unit. it seems that the cable pulley turns over itself leading to the very disconcerting incident this evening when she got stuck over revving; fortunately out of gear.
• the gear cables need to be switched over at the rear and we have ordered a cable adjuster third hand tool to help us achieve this with out a serious amount of cussing. Thank heavens for ebay.
• the numbers on the handlebar to show the gear selection points have to go and we have both agreed that little painted lines and dots would be far more attractive. The problem is how to peel off those self adhesive numbers without taking off the paint!
• we need to somehow find a way of dampening the vibration of the rear number plate unit; it sounds awful and looks grim and we haven't even engaged the gears yet
• we will need to drop the engine again so that we can replace the little bung that goes in the top of the clutch plate tube so that oil doesn't spurt out everywhere
• we have to back trace why the rear brake light wont come on when the brake foot pedal is pressed
• putting a new piece of card covered in duct tape over the horribly butchered arch shaped hole in the lower leg shield

Sorting the cabling is a minor matter and will take around an hour of work. The numbers, if all goes well, probably the same length of time. The devising a solution to vibrating number plates - well that is down to cups of coffee and ingenuity and an inspirational brain wave or two. Could be minutes. Could be weeks!
The rear brake light? Well if God was smiling on me and she does do that occasionally I think, then it will be just a wire that has come loose. The starting point is to very carefully drop the brake foot pedal plate and see in the back. I could have the wires the wrong way around too! 
The leg shield cover - 20 minutes.

So I think maybe, with just a little luck, we are looking at a day's work.
let's hope so. It has been such a saga. One I would rather not have to take into 2013!

Steve