SS90 Project- Sears Frame

Some of my inspiration I have saved on Pinterest. 

I am cutting out the spot welds on the floorboard supports. Eventually I will get to the horn cover and the rest of the legshield itself. I can practice without screwing much up. I started by center punching the spot weld and then using a spot weld drill cut it out. I immediately broke the teeth off of the first one. The second went a bit better but still broke it. Finally I went to the step bit. I punched a hole all the way through but it seems to be the easiest way for me. It wont leave the spot weld to grind off afterwards.

It is hard to see. But there are a lot of spot welds drilled out.

The support has been removed. Vespa didn't paint or prime before the support was attached so it was very rusty.

Vespa SS90 Project

One can't have enough projects, right? I am working on turning my Sears 125 Vespa into an Vespa SS90 "restomod". This will be a long term project and will be posting the progress here. Following are some of the photos of the bike and what I have done so far.

On the left is the original frame. On the right is the SS90 legshield from Scooter Center Klon in Germany

It is not that much taller. The horn cast makes it not line up too well. It is narrower.

The Legshield with the front fender and the headset from Saigon Scooter Center.

Carburetor Mods with manifold

In hope of a bit more reliability and maybe a bit more power. I am trying to fit a Mikuni 28mm carb that was on my Yamaha R5. I have bought an assortment of jets and the tuning guides are very in-depth on how to get it set up correctly. The coupling manifold is quick and dirty, made out of a piece of aluminum that I had lying around. The holes were all drilled on a regular drill press, the two holes that will hold the manifold to the engine are countersunk for socket head bolts and the other two are threaded to hold the rubber carb manifold on.

How the carb will look mounted to the engine. From the engine side.

This is the whole setup with the air filter

The carb in situ. The choke was swapped out for a kit making it cable operated.

Random Photos from this summer

 In the garage

 At Wheels of Italy, next to a Ferrari Testarossa

Parked next to an RV

New Roof!

Today I picked up the roof I had Dick and Rick's make. It had been sitting in my cold car when I tried to fit it for the first time so it was a bit short. But it is the same dimensions as the old one so hopefully it will fit. It is an off the shelf fabric in dark gray. It is OEM for the Chrysler Sebring. I am really pleased with the craftsmanship. 

The Details

It is the little weird things that make me like this car every time I see it. After doing a mockup of the new taillight lenses I remembered the bulbs inside were patterned. I was able to get the details with the new camera. The bulb still works so I am just going to leave it.

Tail lights

There is still a couple of feet of snow on the ground, but I have been itching to get working on the car again. I purchased some taillight lenses from Microcarlot.  I had seen the lenses on some cars down at the World Meet and they looked to be pretty good. The whole lens is plastic, compared to the original, which had a lower glass reflector. The lens is also a bit thicker, so maybe it won't melt like the old ones. Below are the new and old lenses side-by-side. The rubber gasket is not available, so I will probably use the old cracked ones for now.