The reassembly coming together. Read on below for details...

Reassembly
The eighth coat of paint went on the body of the bike so smoothly that it was unnecessary to sand or buff the final coat. It also provided great even coverage of the bike. The scoot looks sweet and marks a momentous threshold between dis-assembly and reassembly.

After stripping off all the masking tape and tin foil, and a brief clean up, it’s time to start re-attaching some hardware:

The original PX center mat was heavily perished after 25 years of weathering so I had bought a replacement. This easily screws back into place with the four original retaining screws. The fuel lever easily screws back into place, but it took me a few fittings to remember that the lever markings sit on the battery side of the bike. The oil sight-glass grommet was a bitch to get back on but with enough WD-40 slid back into place.

The new floor mat and cleaned up original fuel lever back in place.

New leg-shield trim
Continuing the trend of tricky, the new plastic leg-shield trim I had purchased was a similar pain in the ass to get back on but I had been warned this was going to be tough. In the end I followed the advice of a fellow restorer and cut the trim piece into two halves to get it back on. I also soaped down the leg-shield edge with dish soap to help ease the trim on, and then it’s a matter of slowly working your way round. The last few inches went on like putting a tire back on a bicycle. I used the flat blade of a kitchen knife to slowly lever in the last few inches of the trim. In all, it took over an hour to get the trim on, but at least I was prepared.

The glove box
Next up, bolting back on the glove box. A few days ago I replaced the previously broken key barrel and replaced the perished glove box rubber with new. Getting it back on is a little fiddly, because the rubber butts up against the leg-shield trim on the sides. I had also added the front turn signals just before adding the glove box but found it easier to remove them, fit the box and then put them back to give me more room to push the box into shape.

The glove box (with new lock and key) and leg-shield trim in place. The trim still has plastic scratch protection in place.

The horn cover
The horn cover is held in place by three bolts, one of which is behind the Piaggio badge. The nuts sit behind the lower two bolts inside the glove box. I referred back to one of my previous photographs to identify how the horn is wired back to the electrical. I’m not clipping back in the badge just yet in case I need to open it up once I test the electrical. I also took this opportunity to add a shiny new Vespa badge to the leg-shield, which really makes the restoration shine. This is bent by hand and pushed into place.

Re-inserting the front fork
The forks went on the same way they came off, with some blood and sweat. The first step is to thread the lower bearing racer on to the fork where it sits just above the front fender. Don’t forget it before you re-thread the fork into the steering column. It’s designed to go on one way, so make sure it sits right when you put it on then add a liberal amount of grease. Finally, with the help of an assistant this time (how I did this on my own when I took it apart I’ll never know,) I threaded the fork assembly back up into the steering column of the bike.

Once the fork is threaded through the steering column, it’s followed by an upper bearing racer (again heavily greased) then a bearing lock nut. The trick is to the tighten this down enough so that there’s no up-and-down play left in the steering but not so tight that you crush the bearings and can’t steer the bike. This took some patience, in part because without the real tool for the task, a C-wrench, it’s a matter of slowly tightening half-turn by half-turn with a pair of vice grips. This nut is then followed by a washer and one final nut, which locks the entire torque you’ve set on the bearings in place. I had purchased both new upper and lower bearings given the originals were now 25 years old, and I had damaged the upper ones during dis-assembly. They’re a couple of bucks a pop.

The wheels
I had brand new tires and inner tubes delivered during the week. I reassembled these with the split rims I had painted last weekend, and bolted them back on to the wheel hubs, allowing me to finally lower the scoot back off the milk crate and allow it to stand under its own steam. The hub nuts and the split rims are all held in place with the original 13mm nuts, bolts and split washers which have been soaking in WD-40 for the past couple of weeks and are now looking pretty nice.

I may have to remove the wheels later. Here’s why:

For now the tires are still deflated. Following the advice of other scooterists, the best approach apparently is to pump them up by hand as best as possible with a bike pump and then immediately drive to a gas station to finish the job with a high-pressure air hose. I can’t find my bike pump so this is going to take some searching.

The other reason I may need to remove them from the bike later is that when you inflate them you need to make sure they are evenly inflated. New tires are printed with a reference line running the circumference of the tire for this reason. Once inflated with a bike pump, I’ll need to spin the wheel on the hub. If the painted line remains true it means that the tire is evenly inflated, if it doesn’t it’ll translate to wobble when riding the bike and will need to be partially deflated, adjusted on the rim and re-inflated.

Ideally the tires are at least partially inflated off the bike before reassembly, but for now, I just need them to have something to keep the bike upright during reassembly.

The front assembly and wheel back in place. The tire is still deflated and the front brake cable is not yet linked back up.

The headset
I still need to paint the lower half of the headset but for now I went ahead and set the headset down in place on the fork. The headset is held in place by a pinch-bolt that tightens to grip the headset to the fork. I left the headset alone when I painted the rest of the bike because it needs a lot of detail work to paint around the brake calipers, bolts, switches and other doodads. I’ll address this once the rest of the bike is done.

Needing to paint means I’m also not reconnecting the front brakes at this point. Plus, I really need to replace the link armature that connects the lower part of the cable to the front wheel hub. The original is pretty worn, and clearly this is a part of the bike to keep an eye one. One snap, and you no longer have the use of your front brakes. A complete replacement with new hardware is definitely needed.

Give me light
I’ve purchased a brand new halogen-capable headlamp for the bike to replace the stock headlamp that was using a very poor incandescent bulb. Fortunately the lamp bolts (and wires) exactly back into the same location as the previous one. This new unit should kick out significantly more light than was capable in 1984.

The new halogen headlamp replaces the stock.

Time for some painting
A few last pieces of hardware needed a lick of paint. The battery cage, the helmet hook, seat hinge and gas and oil caps were in sorry shape, so after some brief wire brushing were ready for a couple of coats of Rust-oleum gloss black spray.

Spraying the battery cage and other hardware.

I also used this opportunity to clean up the exhaust pipe, which are notorious for rusting. The pipe is removed from the bike very simply. It’s clamped to the exhaust from the engine with one bolt, and another bolt hangs it from the bottom of the bike. After wire brushing and sanding (using a dust mask) I took the advice of other scooter (and motorcycle) restorers and painted the unit with Rust-oleum High Heat spray. It has a matt black finish (also available in silver) and it’s intended for barbecue grills and radiators. It can handle the heat generated by the exhaust safely.

The exhaust pipe after painting.

Finally I masked around the top of the gas tank and gave this a lick of paint, brushing on some Rust-oleum black gloss paint from a can that I had lying around.

The freshly painted fuel tank.

Testing the electrical
Once the battery cage was dry, and re-attached to the body of the bike I was able to reconnect the battery. Finally, after several weeks without power it was time for an electrical test. Without the headset top, I have no speedo or fuel gauges but there are other things I can check. Turning the ignition key a notch allowed me to test the horn – success! We have power. The turn signals were another matter. The front right signal worked immediately, the front left, nothing. I double-checked the bulb and wiring but still nothing. Sounds like it might be the turn-signal relay, which is located behind the battery. The fact that I can’t hear it ticking like the right one also points to a problem here. I’ll take a look at this later. Perhaps it’s a loose wire or it needs cleaning?

To test the rear turn signals requires the cowls. These took some wrangling to get back on the bike because they had warped slightly during the filling, sanding and painting abuse they had taken. Finally however they went back on nicely. The rear turn signals connect to the electrical through a contact pin at the front when they lock into the bike.

This time, the right rear didn’t work but the left rear did. Weirdly opposite to the front signals. I removed the right cowl and sanded the contact to make sure it was connecting with the electrical and not insulated by some of the paint that may have spilt on it. This did the trick and the signal sprung into life. Result. The right turn signal works front and back, the left only works on the rear. I’ll deal with this later. Hopefully it’s just a loose wire somewhere either on the junction block behind the horn-cover or back by the relay behind the battery.

I haven’t reconnected the brake light yet, so no result for that, so time to move on to the big one. The engine…

Firing her up
Ignition on? – check. Gears in neutral? – check. Engine kill-switch on? – check. Fire her up…

Well, she turned over enthusiastically, so there’s plenty of juice in the battery using the electric start. But no dice. I couldn’t get her to fire. A couple more shots of the electric start. Again, a feverish kick but no life. Ah! I forgot the choke. No problem - pull it out. Fire her up. Nothing. Weird. Okay, forget the electric start, try the kick-start a couple of times. Nothing. Weaker than the electric start. Cue head-scratching. The moment I feared. While I haven’t played with the engine significantly I had been nervous about starting her back up after weeks of sitting still.

Then it hit me, the fuel lever was still in the up position and not delivering gas down to the carburetor. Two more fires, and she sprung into life and the new headlamp lit up. Fantastic! I reveled in the scoot coming back to life after lying dormant for weeks. I reveled so much I forgot that I was indoors and slowly filling my apartment with smoke.

Turned her off, smiling from ear to ear as I walked around coughing on the fumes and opening windows left and right to expel the air.

‘Til next time.

Work accomplished:

• Front fork reattached, but speedo and brake cables still disconnected.
• Both wheels back on the bike with new tires but still deflated.
• The glove box, horn-cover, cowls and other miscellaneous hardware back in place.
• Successful engine test.
• Partially successful electrical test.

Still on the to-do list:

• Fault diagnosis on the turn-signals.
• Reattach the seat.
• Inflate the tires.
• Paint the lower headset.
• Reassemble the headset.
• Reconnect the front brakes.
• Rivet in place the new floor runners and hardware.

Related posts:

1. Vespa PX150e restoration – step 7 Two things to talk about this entry. Pulling the front...
2. Vespa PX150e restoration - step 6 The $50 paint job is a resounding success, freeing me...
3. Vespa PX150e restoration ­– step 9 Never replaced cables on your manual geared scooter? Take a...
4. Vespa PX150e restoration – step 13 Step 13 proves to be lucky number 13 as I...
5. Vespa PX150e restoration – step 8 Given this was the first dry weekend in as long...