I was very excited and couldn't wait to pick it up. Now, it's not like the weather has been beautiful in this part of the world since December. We've had many cold icy days and our share of grey, rainy ones but the weather this weekend was forecast to be warm and sunny. Besides, every time I went down to the underground, the absence of my Vespa was painfully obvious. Heck, I even ended up painting a picture of my Vespa for this blog, I missed it so much!
Yesterday, we headed out in the car and after a very nice restaurant at the Tomahawk Restaurant in North Vancouver (looks the same as it did in 1972 - exactly), I was dropped off at Vespa.
Pictured here is the spragg clutch which caused all of the problems. The new one came from Italy - I think it was brought here on one of those three-wheeled pick up trucks, it took so long!
This is the oil that came out of it - it's hard to see but there's a collection of metal particulate coating the bottom of the cup. WIll said that there were a fair number of small chunks stuck to the magnet of a part besides the spragg clutch.
There was a ton of new stuff in the engine and a lot of labour and, I hope, the end of my problems, at least for a while. I handed my credit card over to pay the $1400 bill and threw on my new Corazzo jacket (Merry Christmas from my wife). It started up nicely and, as I sped off, it actually ran better than it had before. The rollers were replaced which fixed the squealing sound that I heard on acceleration. The overall performance seems better, too (although maybe it's my imagination justifying the large bill).
The day was, in fact, sunny, if not a bit cool, but I stayed warm in my jacket with my hands protected by my Chinese handlebar muffs. Toasty!
Now that I've got her back, I can being some new adventures! Looking forward to some nice rides.
Just have to get rid of my LX50.....
