Some serious rust issues to deal with as well as some major body repairs to be made. The area above is curled under the frame quite a bit and it just beat way out of shape. The legsheild (the main front portion) has some twists and dents to it. The front fender is skewed and split down the middle (assumable in the crash). There are thin spots on the underbelly where you can start to see through them (i guess the previous owner slid it around on its belly or something)
This is where the steering column lock should be, it looks as if some got a little screwdriver happy on this one. That should be fun to fix...
Under the left cover (exposed here) is supposed to be a spare tire holder and cover as well as a spare tire and rim set. Since this is obviously gone I have plans to build a spare gas tank and oil storage instead. The gas tank only holds 1.4 gallons but since smallframe Vespas can get anywhere from 78 to 128 mpg 1.4 gallons is a lot of time on this little guy, but I would rather carry a tube for a spare tire since it is more expensive to get an extra tire and an extra rim set and it will be a more custom creative solution to using the space.
This has been one of my biggest struggles in terms of body work. The guy who wrecked this was trying to do a wheelie when he crashed and it shows, the entire underside of the tail is shredded into bits so I will have to fabricate and reconstruct it. The frame is slightly skewed as seen in the picture above (tilting left a bit) I am assuming when it fell it landed on the left side and just made the whole thing a bit wonky or as my mother would say "catywompus" or "whomperjawed" but whatever the case it is going to take some serious time, heat and beating to get PK up to snuff.
You can't help but use your imagination. (at least I cant help myself).
Funny story: I brought PK to the shop (Georgetown College, where I am a sculpture professor) to clean him off and start the body work, after cleaning off 1.5 tons of mud from him I realized it would be easier to work on the body separate from the rest so I would have to take him all apart and I would have to do this at home so I had to get him home somehow. Now it took me and a friend and all of our might to wrangle PK into the back of my truck to get him from London KY to here. I in no way wanted to do that again so I decided to walk PK home (1.7miles from the college to our house). I asked my wife if she would like to take a walk and chat she said sure so we went to the college got PK and started walking home. Uphill...not so fun...pushing dead weight...thinking to myself...pant...wheeze...I am...wheeze...out of shape. But the down hill Holly would hop on the back and I would steer and we coasted all over town. It was a blast. The street we live on is slightly downhill so I told holly to hop on and we rolled so slowly we really could have walked faster or crawled faster is more accurate. Fun was had.
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