crank fails but no puppy dog tails

So I have found what I think to be the major problem with PK. When I first got the vespa when kickstarted it would just wirrr and nothing. I always thought it was a stripped kickstart gear but... I took out the crank the other night and to my surprise the nut that holds the crank to the clutch side hexical cut gear was totally stripped and free to spin in place as well as the tab washer was gone as well as the woodriff key was sheared and the end of the crank stripped. This would make sense why the wirrr and nothing happening. Anyhow now I have to buy a crank and install. I am going to wait on anything else since the crank is 160 bucks from what I can find. Hopefully this will get it running. I am still waiting on new clutch plates. So the wait begins again.

Final Paint

Super pumped about paint and all the body work being done. So here are some sneak peaks of what it is looking like.




The dots on the gas tank are the original color of the vespa.


This is a far cry from what it used to be (seen below)

Wingdings

So they have these little clips (left side of picture) that cost almost a dollar a piece and are on back order everywhere I have looked so could take up to six weeks to get in plus shipping and time. That is an unacceptable situation in the graham house I could have stopped at almost a dollar a piece. In my family if you cant make it you really don't need it. My family is famous for saying "I could make that" or "if you just did this you could" or in the case of my grandfather "whats wrong with a headlight repaired with a plastic jug" or in my case "make it work"...needless to say it runs deep. So in a matter of 2 minutes I had all of these little clips i needed. The clips are used to hold on the leg shield and cowl badges on (the pieces that say vespa and the model) the clips will be painted to match the body color.

This adventure of rebuilding pk has been such a great one. It has done everything I could have asked for so far. I am giddy with excitement about riding it but a bit nervous about getting it done right. Anyhow I must say that as silly as it sounds pk has taught me a lot about myself so far and i cant wait to see this all start coming together.

Second coat of paint

So the second coat of paint went on great. Had a couple of dust particles but I am ok with it since it is the best I could do. And if it ever gets to bothering me that much it I will just change the color. But I am pretty pleased with how it is coming together.

Spray booth

video of the spray booth.

First coat of color

So I have put on the first coat of color and I have rediscovered my disdain for mosquitoes. I am using a shed for a makeshift paint booth. I can spritz the air with water and control quite a bit of the natural dust and particles. But I had a couple of mosquitoes land in the paint and take off. Leaving their legs behind. Also due to the close quarters I tried to paint to many parts at once and ended up backing into a part and the fibers of my shirt were left behind. So this is the result. Sanding the parts and repainting. The paint is a urethane acrylic one phase so the color and clear coat are one. People have said that the color does not last as long and the coverage and saturation can be issues with this type of paint but since i am using gray the color issues are not an issue and I didn't have any problems with coverage. I am pretty pleased with the results. If I were using something like a red color it would be more of an issue. Also it was the difference between 30 dollars a quart to 128 dollars a quart.