We have victory!

Whew, it is finally back on the road! A big thanks goes out to Starr, a local lambretta rider, who really made this possible. I am not sure I could have worked out all the mistakes and fixed them without her. Here's a video of the results. I am jump starting it because I broke the kick start lever.




So a few more things I would tell you about getting everything back together before I forget.

1. Make sure to put the muffler mounting bolt on the engine BEFORE you put the engine back on the frame. You want the bolt head on the front tire side. You will not have enough room under there if you don't do this ahead of time. And you want to be sure you can tighten the nut onto the bolt so it needs to be on the rear wheel side.

2. Make sure you keep track of all the adjusters for the cables. Some how I lost my accelerator cable adjuster and I had to order a new one. It is bigger than the rest of them on the 150 super.

3. Use every one of those nipple things that come with the cables. They go on top of the outer sheath of the cables and help to keep the throttle cable, gear cables, and clutch cable from falling out of alignment and wrecking havoc on your adjustments and the cables actually working. The nipples go on the top end at the headset.

4. When installing the clutch cable, make sure the speedometer is off and you get a better angle for most of it and then you can chase the wire into the tube.

5. The clutch and rear brake cable are a pain in the ass to install, make sure you are pushing the levers forward on them when you are tightening the nuts that hold the cables in place. Very helpful to have a friend.

6. The gear selector box. This took a while to figure out but when we did it made sense. You need to tighten up the cables, but don't go crazy. Snug was good. Then when the cables are tightened on the box, shift PAST fourth, I mean as far as you possibly can. Again two people is almost essential. The person shifting has to watch the cables on the shifting tube because they can easily slip out of the shifting tube when they are going that far past fourth. The person in back may need to help the selector box "jump" past the notch on the selector box. When you are way past fourth you can go ahead and start pushing it down on the studs. Make sure you pack it with grease. Starr also used a small screwdriver to help the selector rod get onto the gear selector. That should do it. Try it out.

7. I completely forgot about this, when you put the fuel tap switch on, go ahead and put it on the tank first and then you can actually get it out the hole on the frame. Otherwise you are trying to fish around in there to get the switch on, but you don't need to do it that way.

8. I had to go back to my old wiring diagram and what I learned for the super was that position 3 and 10 on the ignition switch need to be jumped together for power to get to all devices. You can't just go to one or the other.

9. Don't tighten the screws that hold the front brake and clutch levers on to the handles or you will limit their action.

I think that was really it. I had also sorts of crazy adventures figuring all this out. I was on my way for a celebratory beer the first time I got it running and everything connected when the clutch gave out. It was around 8:30 so getting dark. Starr comes over to rescue me and it takes us a while to figure out that I had forgotten the nipple on the cable sheath and by then we had destroyed the cable trying to figure out the adjustments and why it wasn't working and that wasn't even the problem. Luckily I had my old inner cable and we managed to make it work but by then it was raining and 11 pm.

Then today when we were going to Durham (about an hour ride) my bike siezed up because I have the wrong jet in there and it was running with too much oxygen and got really hot. I was going about 55 mph in the middle of three lanes with busy traffic. Pulled in the clutch right as the rear wheel was locking and avoided complete disaster. Managed to pull over and then went and got Starr's truck and came back to save her. Luckily we were headed to the local incriminator's meeting and they were having a tech session so we took it over there and they diagnosed the problems and I am ordering new jets.

Whew! It feels really good though and from here I just have some minor issues. A small gas leak out of the fuel tap, some jetting issues, and the kick start. At this point that works for me.

Almost there!

Well a lot has happened! I got the body and assorted parts back from the painter on thursday and pretty much since then I have been full throttle getting her back together. Sorry if I didn't really take pictures of the putting back together but I was really really focused on finishing it up as quickly as possible.

Here's some pics for your enjoyment, ok mostly mine:




So as you can see I have it all put back together except the mounting of the engine. Ever since the flywheel nut disaster I've had some problems getting the engine back together. Mostly the damn clutch nut keeps stripping. I'm waiting on a new one from Dave at scootermercato.com so I can put it all back together again and install it on this beauty.

Here's what I learned from putting this thing back together.

1. When installing the legshield trim use masking tape (or painter's tape) to cover up the new paint job, otherwise you will end up with some good scratches like I did, that now need to be touched up.

2. The leg shield trim is not that hard to do, just follow the instructions in the shop manuals. Although I couldn't find one specific to the 150 Super I did read the one for the PX which was very useful for all sorts of maintanence questions. An absolute must read.

3. When installing the wiring, I had three bundles of three wires each which made it much easier. Make sure to install two of the bundles on the throttle side of the headset. The clutch side is rather congested with 2 gear cables and the clutch cable. I made it work on that side with two bundles but it wasn't worth the hassle. I was too far along to change it.

4. Give yourself tons of extra wire! I had to solder on some lenghts to the headset to reach the ignition switch terminals. Not a big deal but a little bit of a hassle.

5. Tell your paint guy to cover up half of the rear brake pedal arm. Also tell him to cover up the headset pieces for the front fork.

6. Go ahead and install the clutch and throttle tubes on the headset first before installing the headset on the body. Make sure you have the tubes on there facing the right direction. Not a big deal on the clutch side because it's obvious but on the throttle side it is easy to get the holes for the cables on the wrong side.

Otherwise everything else was real straight forward for me and I really didn't have any major problems putting it all back together. Now for the engine and too see if my electic system works. Yikes.