New Vespa -- Satuday AM from Craig's list.

 

 

Got the moped back together after installing a new variator.  Got a lot of help from the repair forum on the Moped Army website.  Google always seems to hit them first when I'm looking for performance/maintenance help.

 

We'll see how good my fixes hold together.  I'll take it out for a spin today.  However, first things first.  I have an 8 AM appointment to see another '78 Vespa Bravo...red and in better cosmetic condition than the blue one.

Zen & the Art of Moped Maintenance

 

I never liked working on mechanical systems.  I think as a young man, my experiences working at my father's business only served to reinforce this notion.  I have always seemed to do well enough that I could pay someone else to take care of it.  Even on my bicycle, the most I could muster-up were the skills for road-side repair.

Now, I have mopeds.  Three of them.  Maybe 4.  Suddenly it becomes obvious why I never liked this line of work.  The root of all evil is NOT money.  It is a half-moon sliver of metal called a "woodruff key".  But that was an earlier story that I would just as soon forget about. 

 

I changed the rear tire on a '78 vespa bravo tonight (well, I started on the weekend & my daughter assisted).  Now, I'm realizing that it somehow isn't quite right.  I certainly wouldn't trust it on the commute (15 miles) to work.  It is very scenic commute until you catch glipses of the infamous Folsom Prison.  (I still haven't figured out how you could shoot a man in Reno & end up in a California correctional facility.  I won't lose sleep over it & I digress.)

 

Back to the Bravo.  It will take a couple of days of patience, but I didn't have to take apart the rear hub assembly or I would have had to deal with -- THE WOODRUFF KEY!  I fired it up & 30 yards later the entire variator assembly (at the front of the drive belt) fell into pieces.  Tomorrow, I will patiently work through 3 manuals and numerous on-line sources to figure-out where I screwed this up.

 

I'd love to say something enlightened like, "I will pray for patience".  Because we all know..."be careful what you ask for".

 

Just venting.

Life without apologies is the denial of imperfection.

 

 

"Vote early, vote often".  Thought to have been said by Richard Daley, but was actually (more appropriately) Al Capone.