Finally a breakdown

Finally the Rally broke down. The clutch wire had been stubborn after last weeks rideout, and the cable finally broke.

This is the first "incident" that I have with this bike after returning from Vespa World Days in Gjøvik, and I must say I'm pretty amazed with how it keeps providing me with trouble free scootering.

The cable was swiched in half an hour. Note to myself: Get a new cable kit for backup.

Vespa World Days 2011 Gjøvik

Vespa World Days 2011. 7 Roughnecks. 7 Vespas. 1 Rally. 

I'd driven the Rally for one single day before driving 800kms to Gjøvik, and the scooter behaved all the way. Beat that!  

 On our way towards Hjelmeland - Haukeli - Notodden. It rained heavily & constantly for 11 hours and 45 mins the first day towards Notodden. The remaining 15 mins of the 12 hour trip, it rained only slightly. But everybody was well dressed; Gloves were a returning nightmare...

 Next day near Hokksund, towards Gjøvik: Teamed up with the Rivals from Kristiansand. Much better weather.

 The Rally behaved very well on its trip to Gjøvik, but a minimal oil leakage from rear axle and forecast of rain on my way home; I changed the sim.ring before it would make any trouble.

Out with tank, rest the old lady on her side in the grass, remove tire and drum... Easy fix.

Telltale of defect simring; oil stains coming from axle spinning out. 

Notice to myself regarding tubeless: Use weak thread lock on bolts... 

Sim-ring removed, 47-27-6 if I remember correctly. The sim-ring looked undamaged, and afterwards I suspect that a too loose axle bolt might have caused the leakage, allowing too much radial play. The simring was reused on DC's 1958 model with same issue, only more severe...

No other problems detected, possibly a small leakage from exhaust. 

 Roughnecks, me second to right.  

 I ended up driving Gjøvik - Stavanger all alone on my way home. The backup truck started 2 hours behind me, and passed me first on Suleskaret, near home. 

Except for running out of gas some kms before Notodden, the scooter would have behaved all the way home. But from Seljord and on, I experienced 6-8 motor stops, and several hundreds of hickups. Every time, just choking and starting the bike again would cure it. I suspect the 4 liter window cleanser can I used as an emergency gas can when running out of fuel still contained some window cleansing liquid... 

Motorstop @ Suleskaret. It was just like there was a "layer" of water in the tank. Shaking the tank helped a lot, and hickups went a way for a while... But I made it home!

Registration 2.0

Short story: Friday 13th the Rally was approved, thanks to my father who helped me while me being in Cyprus on holiday.

Some minor prepping of the scooter remained before I could join in on VWD 2011 Gjøvik the 18th, so when I got back from holidays I added a new petrol filter (Short story: New tank lacquer didn't handle petrol... ) and added tubeless rims and new wheels to the scooter. Ready for 18th!

Registration & approval day

Finally, the day had come!

08:00 sharp I went to "Statens Vegvesen" to get the bike approved and registered.

08:10 they found out that an important piece of paper was missing. F**k. When importing the scooter from Sweden I paid VAT at the customs office at Ørje, but they failed to give me the correct form which Statens Vegvesen needs for even starting the approval. F**k. How could I know that the form I got was not the correct one? F**k!!!

After a telephone call and a visit to the local customs office in Stavanger, I actually managed to obtain a copy of the missing document, and returned to Statens vegvesen around 09:30. But I was out of luck, they didn't have time to help me.

New appointment is scheduled for May 13th. Only problem is that I am on Cyprus then... But one problem at a time.

I need to get the bike registered before May 18th, we leave for Vespa World Days in Gjøvik then. This is going to be a close call...

Painting tank

Todays work: Spraypainted the new tank and some other small details. Lacking a proper place to spray paint, the work was done outside. The spray paint nozzle provided with the paint produced a very wide spray conus compared to an ordinary spray can.  Except for that the spray was easily distributed, and the result looks OK. Some dust was to be expected when spraying outside.

Small parts also sprayed.

Also took the opportunity to paint over some bruises on the Rally itself with a pencil.  The color I chose is very close to the original color, but not 100%. Will have to check again when it has dried up, and in broad daylight. 

Now I just hope the tank will be dry and hardened enough before tomorrow night, so that I can install it before the Approval on Wednesday. 

Rally colors part 2 + some electric diagnostics

This is my struggle. No match. I'm leaning towards the Lacquer Red.

On the next picture, I've added the swatched with tape and no white just right from the spare wheel (the tubeless tire by the way, had to check if the 2,5" rim fitted, which it does), where the white line is. Still no match in broad daylight.

Over to option 2. The guy from VespaPaintCodes.com has emailed me back, and we've struck a deal for some red color codes translated from the Max Meyer codes. Off to the local paint shop.

But: The local paint shop couldn't mix the codes, even if they supply Dupont paint. They've obviously got another Dupont system. Dah. Running out of options here. When explaining my frustration to the paint shop clerk, he showed me a suitcase of red swatches, which they didn't show me the last time I was there. I was possibly saved!

Out of the suitcase I found the closest match in the red - orange flavour, and got a spraycan mixed.

This was a few days ago. Today, the tank lid was taken from the original tank and sandblasted in it's atomic parts, and both the lid and new tank got a fresh primer layer.  

The handlebar covers and some blind plugs received same treatment. As soon as the weather permits it, the parts will be painted. Hopefully tomorrow, as the parts must dry properly before installing them in the Rally again.

ELECTRIC UPDATE.

The electrics on the Rally confuses me. Since it's a battery model, the horn is 6V AC while the rest of the lights are 6V DC.

Up until now, the lights have in some way functioned, but the horn didn't. And there was no way of turning off the lights completely.

Short version: I've not been successful in finding the correct Rally wiring diagram. Several wiring diagrams exist, but not correspond to the one I have for some reason.

I've done some testing with the the wiring above, testing the functions by swapping the cables around.

The result so far: Switching the two cables providing the horn signal gave much better light, but the functions are not quite right yet. I'm not able to turn off the light. The speedo light is only working in one position; the wrong one by the way. The horn still doesn't work, when I've previously got it to work in one position etc.

I've ordered some new light control panels, as I think this unit might have been replaced with a wrong unit.

But: As far as getting the bike approved, this will hopefully only provide a punch which has to be corrected at a later stage. Only a couple of days left now...

Rally colors

It's getting close to registration of the Rally, and I am still struggling to find the right color the scooter was painted in. This is important, as I need to install a new tank which needs to be sprayed in the right color.

Going to the local lacquer shop and looking through all the color maps available did not prove useful, the nearest match to a orange red was either a Suzuki color (which was a hint to brown) and a Kia color (which was too yellow). All other reds lacked the orange flavour.

Searching the net and forums, and asking the scooter community for advice brought me a bit closer:

Scooterhelp provided Max Meyer Vespa Paint codes.

According to this, the Rally has been delivered in the following colors, possible colors bolded by me.

Vespa Rally 200(VSE1T)

• Max Meyer Paint Code: "Metallic Moon White" 2.268.0108
• Max Meyer Paint Code: "Racing Red" 1.298.5806
• Max Meyer Paint Code: "Lacquer Red" 1.298.5895
• Max Meyer Paint Code: "Katmandu Red" 1.298.5875
• Max Meyer Paint Code: "Polaris Grey" 1.268.8200
• Max Meyer Paint Code: "Coral Red" 1.298.5880

OK, I've got four red colors to work out from. First step: Find out how they look.

A buddy in our local club, Roughnecks, tipped me that the Scooter Center catalogue provides color samples in the back. The catalogue proved useful in eliminating Katmandu red, as this is way too maroon.

The 3 colors to go are however more tricky. I tried to compare them to the original lacquer on the bike, but did not get an obvious match on any of them. Three things come to mind: 1) The paint is obviously faded and is not as it was back in 1975 and 2), the reproduction of the colors in the catalogue is not 100% accurate. 3), Doing this at night in the garage under ambient lighting might not be the best idea.

1) I need to find a non-faded part for best comparison.

2) Reproduction. For comparison, I just "happen" to have a spare (most likely 180) Rally headset in a more orange color:

If my reasoning is right, the 180 Rally headset is "Gelb Orange" 1.298.2916, but on comparison it actually looks more like the "Korallen-Rot" 200 Rally color. None of the colors are "close enough" to say it's a match. This troubles me.

3) I obviously should repeat this in broad daylight, and scissor out the samples to see how they blend on a large surface. This is on my todo list. 

Now to the second issue: 

Trouble with the Max Meyer codes is that no lacquer shop can mix these codes.  Entering the Max Meyer to PPG codes. This page translates some (but not all) colors to mixable (hopefully?) PPG code colors.

Just my luck. NONE of the Rally Max Meyer reds are even mentioned, although Rosso Corallo is mentioned, and has been translated to PPG 870.

So now I'm a bit stuck, but not completely. I've emailed this guy on Vespa Paint Codes to see whether he can help. Then I at least have the option of getting multiple colors blended to find the match.

Not a cost efficient way to do it, but at the moment I don't have many options.

I'll do a last check in broad daylight and then wait for an answer from Vespa Paint Codes, to be continued...