Getting Ready -- Wiring and ordering bits

Starting to get the parts together to put my Vespa back on the road. I am following this diagram for my wiring and here is how I modified it for my own personal use:





I chose this because my scooter had it's electrics upgraded way back when I bought it. It has electronic ignition now and got rid of the battery setup. My old harness had all sorts of wires for the battery as well as the turn signals and a switch on the front brake lever to light up the rear brake light.

It is 12v now with the standard 5 wires coming out of the stator and an 8 pole ignition switch. The VBC apparently has a very unique 8 pole ignition switch that the other Vespa's don't. I am going to try to install the more common one and see what happens. All of the wiring diagrams seem to follow the other 8 pole switch so I have more diagrams to go off of. So it turns out the other 8 Pole switches simply won't work on the Super. If you changed the headset then yeah maybe. But I really like the round headlamp so I'm sticking with the super 8-pole switch as it is my only option. I just hope I never have problems with it.

Because of the wacky setup and the uniqueness of the VBC 8 pole switch I couldn't quite figure out a harness to purchase for this so I am going to make my own. Really hard to find a shop around here in Raleigh that carries multi-colored wires in 18g and 16g for what I needed (you can get lots of fun colors at a car stereo store, just not marine grade).

The web of course is the answer. It was highly recommended on scooterbbs to use marine primary wire as it is very abrasion and corrosion resistant. I found out I could order the majority of colors online at westmarine.com in 1 ft. increments, which saved me the expense of buying it by the spool. My total cost was $30 with shipping. I used 18g for most wires, except the following (based on the above pdf) and note also the color changes:

1. Yellow wire from regulator (says rectifier on the pdf) to ignition switch position 6
2. Green wire from ignition unit to ignition switch position 4
3. Blue wire from stator to regulator (unregulated power). I also did not use black here as per the diagram but kept the wire blue all the way from the stator to the regulator.
4. Black wire from ignition switch to rear brake is 18g Orange.
5. I also added 18g brown, pink, and white for turn signals. This is not on this diagram but I might draw one so you can see how I added LED turn signals. This is a future project but I am installing the wiring now. Basically I'll have 3 wires connected to the turn signal switch on my handlebar on the left side. The white will be the power coming from the turn signal flasher mounted by my regulator and the brown and pink will go to the respective turn signals I'll mount later.

I might use 18g for the ground coming out of the stator but that's for later and not that big of a deal.

Next I ordered all new brake, clutch, choke, and speedometer cables from scooterworks, as well as a new keyed ignition switch, new 12v regulator, brakes, and random clips and pins that needed replacing.

I also went through all my baggies and started degreasing and cleaning all of the random bits, screws, nuts, bolts, and random pieces to get them ready. I'll be replacing lots of rusty bolts and such and taking a trip to the hardware store to rifle through their bins to see if I can find everything I need. I am also preparing some rust treatment for parts that I am not replacing right now, such as my shift and throttle tubes, fork, kickstand, etc.

Hopefully I'll be ready to put everything back together with only a few random last minute orders and trips to the hardware store. After this is done I'll start to upgrade other things over time. White wall tires, new shocks, rims, kickstand, colored rubber trim and grommets, new brake and clutch levers, and other small bits and pieces to slowly put the finishing touches.

Assuming the body and paint work are done, I'll start this on the weekend and I'll post pictures of the process and any tips and tricks I learn.

Really worried about the legshield trim, of which I do have the original and hope to preserve it and install back on.

On to the actual restoration part

Well I finally got my shit together and now things should move forward quickly. I media blasted (glass beads) the frame and all the parts that I am going to have painted. There's quite a bit of body work to be done prior to the paint job so all of that needs to be done. I thought about doing all of this myself but given the seriousness of the body work, welding, dings, reinforcing, etc it just didn't seem practical.
The paint alone, had I bought it retail, was going to be around $300!! So I had a couple of local bike body shops and got some quotes. Turns out I was able to barter some of my services for a very drastic reduction in the price. So I have farmed it out and it should be back to me with a pristine body and paint job. I am going to go with a base/coat paint layers. Colors are going to be Green/White/Red. Probably going to add a little pearl and maybe some luster to make it shiny. Very excited about this.

From there I am going to install new wires, cables, and brakes first and then slowly start adding upgrades like white walls, new fork, new shocks, white trim & rubber, new exhaust, new kickstand, maybe a new stator and other none-such. Basically almost a complete rebuild except the engine. Just don't have the money to drop about $1000 in parts right now. Here's some pics of the "white" Vespa.