The never ending scooter project

After last weekend I got sick of tripping over stuff as the garage is such is mess.
So I had a reasonable bash at tidying up.
I got about half done and got fed up because it was quite cold outside and it was a bit drafty.
I managed to get the legshields off the polo to find that the horncast is quite well attached by two stuck screws.
I know I've got a new horncast to use but I would rather not damage this one if I can.
I wanted to move a lot of stuff to the shed where my sandblaster is but the half stripped pushpak is in there so the garage remains full of stuff.

I finally decided to take the plunge and sell the gilera. I need the money for a new car.
I rarely use the gilera so it's got to go. The same can be said for the rest of the scooters (I do a round trip of 140 miles a day to work, not nice on a scooter) but they are my hobby and when I do get one finished I will use it at the weekends instead of the car. I'll also try to go to work one day a week so I can get some miles on the scooters and do some testing of new products like pipes!!

I'll be sad to see the Gilera go but it's the only candidate as it should hopefully raise most of the shortfall of the car money.

Got some parts for the polo from Bedlams, the shop that imported them in the 1980's.

Some of the stuff I possibly don't need but when you have got a scooter as obscure as a polo it doesn't do any harm to get what you can.

I got a pair of side panels (mint), a horncast (mint), a front mudguard (mint), a speedo (new), a headlight unit (new) and a rear light unit (new).

I will have to use the panels and the front mudguard to restore my polo and I will probably use the rest while I am at it.

I am in two minds whether to keep the indicators. I would like to because they will be a challenge to set up but the way they are fitted does not comply with the UK laws so I might struggle to get the scooter through the MOT test. I will have to chat to my local MOT tester to see where I stand.

I wanted to get the engine casings from the Polo and the Pushpak stripped right down so I could check them over and see what work needs doing to them.

The rear hub of the polo was giving me a lot of trouble as the threads were stripped on one of the three holes for the extractor.
I solved it by putting an old rear hub nut on the layshaft then hitting it with a big hammer.
This pushes the layshaft through the hub. It obviously only works if the endplate isn't it place but seems to work OK otherwise.
I will have to repair the hub thread before I use the hub as it cannot be removed that same way from a built engine.

I removed the tank and toolbox from the polo as well as the seats and the forks.
The forks took ages to strip down. I am not sure what was stuck but it felt like the fork link caps were sticking.

After that I moved back onto the polo casing. Now the rear hub was off I could removed the old brake shoes and the cam. I found that the rear brake arm had been welded to the rear brake cam (rather than them taking an hour to change the cam and arm). Maybe they had struggled to remove the rear hub like I did.
It took some very careful work with the angle grinder but in the end the cam and arm were in the bin with no damage to the casing.

I had another look at the broken off cylinder stud. There is only about 3mm sticking out so there is not quite enough to grip with some molegrips. I will have to see if there are any special tools available to try and remove the stud.

Started off in the garage on Saturday morning with the best intentions of having a good tidy up so out came the Allwyn Pushpak to make some room to tidy up.
I took some photos of it then the curse struck and before I knew it the headset top was off and the engine was out.

I stripped down the engine fairly quickly and was pleasantly suprised with the condition.
However most of the internals were binned. The taper on the crank was very pitted so it would not even be worth flogging cheap on ebay to someone. I might use it in the cutaway engine I want to do, or possibly make a jig for measuring port timings.

There was nothing particularly interesting to find in the engine, it had about twice as much gearbox oil is as normal.

It's got the early type Indian Gp150 gearbox. It looks much better than the Italian ones as it's got a very good ratio between 3rd and 4th gears so I will end up using it I think.

A scooter with no engine in is a pain as it's not easy to move so I've put it in the shed for the time being.

I did plan to just give this one a gentle overhaul with new cables etc and run it as it was but I think I'd better strip it down as I am not confident with the way it is put together.

On Sunday I planned to tidy up again but the curse struck again with the Lamby polo.
Off came the headset top and I found a full box of matches inside. There is plenty of room inside the headset, you could even fit a master cylinder inside linked to the brake lever with a solid linkage. That would be trick.

I then took the rear runner boards off and noticed that the legshields are in three parts - there's the curved bit at the front, the u shaped bit that runs up inside and the flat part where you feet go.

The flat part looks like it has been repaired, quite well I must say, but they aren't quite right.
I'm sending a polo to a friend in the states soon so I will have the chance to compare the two parts and I might find out that the repair is better than I thought!

Out came the engine, which was filthy!
Interesting points on this engine:-

• API logo on everything, even the gears
• Kickstart lever welded to kickstart shaft, that will be tricky.
• Gearbox matches LI150 Italian ratios (Result!)
• One cylinder stud is broken off, I wonder how long it was run on three studs?
• The cylinder was marked with API POLO, I will have to look at the ports to see if it is factory tuned at all, might make a nice 175 conversion.

So at the end of the weekend I've got the remains of two engines floating around, and the bin is full of stuff I chucked.

I sat and had a bit of a think about a cunning plan to do up all the scooters.

One plan is to do two at a time which in theory could mean deals on painters, blasting etc.

I really do think I will have to learn how to spray as that is the only thing that is really holding me back, apart from money!

After picking up the 2 scooters last week the garage was absolutely choc-a-bloc.

So today I decided to have a bit of a sort out and tidy up to try and make some more room.

I basically moved some shelves around which allowed me to push the Lambro right into one corner out of the way.

The pick up bed from the Lambro is very rusty and today I had a good look at it and decided it was beyond repair.

The trouble with disposing of it is that it is big - about the size of a single bed so I had to get the angle grinder out to cut it in half so it will fit in the car to go to the dump.

With the pickup bed gone there is a fair bit more room in the garage now.

I went to the monthly motorcycle autojumble at Rufforth, just outside York.
It's on the first Saturday of every month, it starts very early but there is still plenty going on all morning.

I wasn't looking for anything in particular, it's never very good for scooter stuff as the few people doing scooter stuff want top dollar for their stuff.

A bench grinder converted into a polisher caught my eye, but at £85 for the whole set-up it will have to wait a bit.

I found someone selling sheets of gasket material so I bought a sheet to make some inlet gaskets for a project.

I spotted a stall that sells floormat material by the roll which will be useful for my Lambro and also possibly for the Lamby polo.

All in all a productive day apart from someone nicking the car number plate while I went to the cinema on the way home.

Remembered tonight that I'm running a blog site and I'm supposed to be keeping it up to date!

I will set it as my homepage and maybe that will remind me to update it!