ONE of the most iconic scooters of the 60s was the son of the legendary GS 160 - the SS 180. Ignore it you can't, with its brave new world styling of angular facets and the minor upset it caused with the Mod set of those days - they still wanted the GS! The arrival of the SS 180 is just about summed up with a quote from a Vespa enthusiast: "I think the SS180 is to scooter fans what Mick Jagger is to women - a bit ugly but somehow irresistible!"
The SS in question would never have been seen in the Kings Road in the 60s, having been first registered in Holland in 1967 and therefore, having the distinguishing lack of headset ignition switch that points towards the lack of a battery required to work any of the electrics. This, at a single blow, removed one of the Achilles heels of the entire GS range - the battery. The UK spec SS actually only needed the battery for the, (then mandatory) parking lights and io power the horn and stoplight The Dutch SS in question also didn't run! The previous owner (an English, full-time resident in Holland) had purchased the SS from a Dutch sales website called Speurders that has a scooter section and can throw up some interesting bargains. Sadly, no amount of encouragement would tempt the old and scruffily painted SS to fire up. The Dutch Vespa club suggested that the main oil seals were the culprits, but enthusiasm was waning and the SS was to be sold on, as a non-runner, to take up a new life in the UK.
The new buyer had (don't we all?) a rebuilt Vespa SS 180 engine lying against the wall of his garage. He was offered this reasonable, rust-free SS with a duff engine. It was a marriage made in heaven, you might say? It's a shame in life that the rose-tinted spectacles take over and what would, at first glance, appear to be a simple job, actually proves to be just the opposite? This was one such case - be warned! The new engine had the stator of the Dutch engine attached and the whole issue was grafted onto the clog wearing SS chassis. So far so good, but here comes the embarrassing bit: It all worked OK up to the MoT, passed with flying colours and then refused to budge! Everything was tried. The emotional owner begged his friend and scooter electrical genius (Gary, the proprietor of Allstyles Scooters) to do his magic. Gary had the SS, in the thick of winter, for quite some time. He tried everything. Then the 'penny dropped: "Did you know that the cylinder head was loose?" Red faces all round! The outcome was a rough-looking rust red painted SS 180, with a brand new-looking and now working (thank you, Gary!) engine. Miracles take a little longer!
The old SS was (for a 40-year-old scooter) remarkably rust free. The only parr that was a bit rough was the front mudguard that had hit something and had been allowed to go rusty at the prow. The SS had been blown-over in a reddish brown Honda car colour - even the model name badges had been treated to this paint job. Where this not-so-lovely paint had chipped off could be seen grinning through, a bright red previous respray and (if you looked carefully enough) the original hawthorne white factory finish under all that paint.
Some of the SS would not part company with its adjacent fitments. The headset had the rarely seen cover plates that were resolutely bolted to the underside of the casting (these plates were dispensed with on future models - we wonder why?). Nice of the Piaggio people to choose dome-headed slotted bolts to clamp these plates in place. Bolts, which one can be forgiven for thinking, were made of a particularly hard Italian cheese... Parmesan? Apply a screwdriver; chew up the head of the bolt; end of story! The bolts had to be machined out of the headset casting, a process that took hours. Ever tried fitting an SS headset in a clamp to allow a drill press to be used? Very difficult and heart-stopping experience!
The aluminium floor runners were in a decrepit condition and in places had almost oxidised ro nothing. They were to be replaced. Now, another warning: It's not possible to buy a model-specific set of footboard runners - one size fits all. These sets have to be cut to a length to suit your Vespa and drilled to match your model's rivet holes. Time consuming (and to get to the point) best done on the old painted chassis, before you have it expensively resprayed. The constant 'offering up' and bending to match your footboard will scratch the newly painted surface, unless you are slow and meticulous in undertaking this work. Guess what? This had to be done after the respray in our case, as the owner did not realise just how awkward this task would be! The moral of this story is to cut and drill the runners first.
Other tips on runner fining are to pop rivet the ally runners in place as per PX practice (howls of protest from the vintage Vespa fans)! Use raised countersunk slotted bolts to fit the end caps (more screams form the audience)! And (this will be greeted wirh less horror) slide rhe rubbers into the ally strips, lubricating the strips with WD40, from one end of each strip. Be sure to cut the rubbers at least 15mm longer than they need be as the end caps will force the rubbers to sit better. These kits are well-made, despite the amount of work involved. (If anyone has failed to see the logic of the fixing process as recommended here, the object is to avoid hitting the newly painted surface with a hammer to peen over the blind rivets that were originally used. Interestingly, the new runner kits now supply pop rivets as fixings as standard).
Another tip for all scooterists when rebuilding any scooter: Before the respray, run a file around the area covered by the headlamp rim. Remove some of the metal and clean up with wet and dry paper. Modern paints are thicker than the old style cellulose finishes and can be damaged when the rim is pushed into place, if it's a very tight fit. This tip was not used on this SS, needless to say! Think also about fitting a steel plate between rhe stand bracket and the chassis to prevent the stand bearing against the underside of the footboards. This raises the stand a fraction, which is a bonus.
The SS had a habit of blowing the rem- light. This was solved by fitting new coils onto the stator. This is a problem often associated wirh old, non-battery Lambrettas. Thanks, again, to Gary for his input into solving this.
Strip show
A Vespa is a Vespa. They all come with more-or-1 ess the same body panels and the stripdown follows rhe time-honoured system of removing all parts bar the engine and front wheel, then the headset, the forks and the engine. The most complicated unit (apart from the engine) is the fork assembly. This has been covered in derail in a previous article, as regular readers will, no doubt, be aware? The headset is reasonably easy to strip. It's a good idea to make diagrams of how parts fit together before the brain cells degenerate and you forget! It's also good practice to leave all cables in situ, to be used as draw wires on reassembly. The sprayers tend not to like this, but tough!
Clean everything, so as to check for splits that may need welding up. This also pleases the sprayers who don't like being given a box. of dirty birs and you really don't want to upset the sprayer, do you? Any threaded parts should have a bolt inserted, as this will save a boring job of running a tap through every hole after the paint has dried.
The rear light for rhe SS is only available as a plastic replacement, an item that leaves something to be desired. Again rebuilding the original rear light has been covered in an earlier article and is very satisfying and a reasonably easy job to undertake.
We can rebuild you...
Strangely enough, the stand is usually the first item to go back onto any repainted scooter. This allows the chassis/frame to be stood off the floor and gives stability to the whole rebuilding process. Attach the stand spring before bolting both of the stand brackets in place and the stand itself can be used as a lever to hook rhe spring in place, as you bolt the brackets into place. No swearing and grunting will be necessary!
Re-cabling is, possibly, the next job and can be made simple by feeding suitable gauge galvanised wire through the old outer cables and then through the new outers, so as to form a double length continuous cable. After taping this all together, the old cable may be pulled out and the new cable outer pulled into its place. Simple! Forks are nexr. The front mudguard has to be slid down the steerer tube of the fork (rwo people are really needed to complete this task) so that the top of the mudguard can rest against the fork bump stops. Reverse the direction of the mudguard, so the front peak fates towards the rear of the forks and gently twist the mudguard through 180 degrees allowing the forked bump stops to pass through the hole in the top of the mudguard in a corkscrew manner. Bolt everything up and then the press into place the lower fork race dust cover followed by the lower fork race that can be tapped into position Eibove the mudguard and the cover. If the race cover is a tight fit use metal shears to cut slots at 90 degrees from the centre of the cover. The forks and its bearings can now be assembled into the chassis. Grease all bearings, but don't overdo this, as it can prevent final tightening of the top race and the forks will be found to loosen after the grease has worked its way out.
The headset can now be slid over the top of the fork steerer rube (a right fit) and the rear pinch bolt and nut tightened. Final tightening is best left as one of the last tasks, when both wheels are in situ. Two long pieces of timber can then be clamped either side of the tyres and the headset positioned to face full ahead.
Engine installation
To enable the scooter to be moved around, the front wheel, followed by the entire engine can now be installed. The engine is a heavy, lopsided lump for the one-man amateur mechanic to fir. There are, no doubr, many ways of tackling this? Here is one ploy that has been used successfully many times. You will require a scissor jack for this method. If there isn't one in the family car, your friendly local scrap merchant will sell you one for about £5, but beware of the Alsatian! Firstly, prop the engine up so the swinging arm at the front of the engine is horizontal to the floor. Do this in the middle of the shed/garage. A 50mm lump of wood under the gear selector pod is ideal to level off the engine. The scissor jack can then be positioned under the crankcase, in a position close to the rear of rhe cylinder, allowing the weight of (he engine to balance on the top of the jack. Now the clever bit. Drag the chassis (the stand must be down) back towards the engine unit. Line up the engine bolt holes in the chassis with the swinging arm (the chassis holes should be about 50mm in front of the swinging arm for this to work properly). Raise the jack so the holes in the swinging arm are now in line with the chassis holes and, with luck, the engine bolt can be knocked through (from the spare wheel side, please)!
Snags? There are many. The engine must be well balanced on the jack or it may topple over. Best to put some masking tape over the painted inside surface of the chassis, to prevent damage. The chassis may have to be jiggled into place to line up the holes. Finally, don't do what the owner of our SS did! Don't knock the engine bolt through without cleaning away the new paint around the chassis holes. If you do, you may well knock a large scab of paint away from the chassis as the bolt exits? You have been warned! Oh, this process doesn't work with the silencer fitted to the engine.
Final assembly
The cables proved to be a problem; they were of a'one size fits all'Vespa selection. They proved ro be all too long for the SS (not, however, the rear brake cable, which is 100mm short!) and - for added entertainment value - the barrels soldered to the headset end of the inner cables were slightly too big to fit into the gear and throttle rockers. Well done, to the person who sold those! Must try harder. The headset barrels were of a plated finish mimicking the old cadmium coating. They were too tight to rotate in the rockers, so inner cables with dull 'diecast' ends were substituted - these rotared freely.
All cables were cut to length, allowing a free sweep to fit into the various control trunnions. The front brake cable was cut to follow the bend of the speedo cable. New end ferrules were added to the cut ends. These are available at all bike (as in: push bike) shops for a few pence. Quite why the throttle cable was a merie longer than necessary defies all logic?
The back brake cable on these older Vespas (where the cable run from the pedal is partly above the footboards) can prove to be a bit of a problem. Debris can collect at the end of the cable tube that exits from the chassis and this can stop the outer cable locating correctly. There is help at hand (once again from the bike shop) in the form of a cable-tensioning tool - a 'must have' for this process. Simply tighten the pedal end cable clamp onto the inner cable, position the tensioning tool at the end of the outer cable at the engine end, squeeze the tool closed and the outer will be forced along the inner into its position at the end of the cable tube.
The short rear brake cable outer is recrified by cutting a 100mm length off an old rear brake cable (The old one as removed on the strip down will do) and just add that onto the end of the short new cable after threading the inner cable through. Not ideal, but effective! the last parts of the body rebuild proper are the addition of legshield toolbox: the petrol tank rind the sent. The seat, one would have thought, would be a doddle? The frame pristine in its' new black needed a matching black seat cover. This had been ordered from an Italian parts catalogue and duly arrived in, above all things, an A3 envelope! It looked somewhat similar lo the old style elasticated seat covers. Not what the owner had in mind at all. There were no clips, no seat badge and (worst of all) no seat padding. The seat padding had to be cannibalised from the old seat cover. The new cover was held in place by contact adhesive on the lower seat frame. It all worked out quite well -just like the factory fitted seat.
Endpiece
This was never meant to be a blow-by-blow assembly guide for an SS 180; more an insight into the inevitable pitfalls that can occur when working on a 40-year-old Vespa, On rereading this saga, some of the problems were obviously self-inflicted, but many of the problems were caused by the new spare parts (all sourced in England and mainland Europe), but causing the sort of problems more often associated with the purchase of cheap 'n' cheerful Far Eastern components. A few of these parts had ro be discarded as not fit for the purpose and, thus, adding to the cost of the project.
Costs
We'll try to be honest here:
Cost of original scooter £1250
Cost of importing £275
Paint job £900
Legshield trims £135
Cost of engine repairs £347
Chrome plating £110
Misc. spare parts £350
Registration, etc £66
TOTAL £3433
No comments:
Post a Comment