Still Busy, Busy, Busy!

The second anniversary of me getting the Lambretta is getting close. I had in my head that it would be all finished by now, but sadly , it isn't. So, what else have I done?

I needed to get the fuel tank, the airbox and the toolbox in, so that was the next job. A load of fiddling to make sure I didn't scratch that lovely orange paint, but it was all relatively straightforward. And it looks excellent.

I need to fit the legshields and the mudguard and the horn casting. And get all of the rubber bits of trim in the right places, so off I went. The paint work suffered a few scratches while trying to get the leggies in, which I was very pissed off about. I even masked up all the points of contact, so that this could be avoided, but the leggies just ploughed the paint. Very annoying, but it's only a scooter...


Legshields in, I fitted the stainless runners prior to the mudguard and horncasting ... Just can't wait! The reason for fitting this trim first is that some of the bolts for the runners hold on the mudguard. But other bolts need to sit under the trim, so it all gets a bit confusing. Oh, and I put in those little rubber anti-vibration thingies too... How fiddly are those? I put the legshield trim on too. The original polished legshield trim clasp I bought shattered, so a quick trip up to Scootlife, and I had a new (and better) set in my hands.

Mudguard and horncasting, next, and what a pain in the arse those were. You have really limited access to get to things, so I had to enlist Carol and her unfeasably small hands to do up some of the nuts. And taht trim for the horncasting just wouldn't stay put at all. You'd do one side, then the other would pop out (or pop in). That was very annoying. But, it's all finally in and looking absolutely sweet! It looks like a scooter now.

More Headset

So the headset saga continues... The job I have been putting off is the wiring. To me, it is a nightmare - my brain can't cope with it at all.

I was up at Scootlife, my local scooter shop run by Taff, buying some bits when Ady called in for some stuff for his T5. I explained my lack of progress with the rebuild being down to my reluctance to start the wiring, and Ady kindly offered to come down and give me a lift with the wiring. He arrived next day and we (or rather he) set to work. I was right about it being a nightmare... I tried to follow what was going on, but failed after about a minute. Anyhow, 30 Maplins Bullet connectors, five brews, a few biscuits and umpteen fags later, and we were done. We had a working scooter. We tested the wiring using a battery charger to give us some power instead of the engine (Ady is a qualified electrician, so don't try this unless you know what you are doing) and the Halogen light conversion (from Sparkrite Technologies), the horn, the brake light and tail light all work! Fantastic! And that's with a dodgy switch I bought from ScootRS (should have been 3 position, not 2 - typical!).

We put in a load of extra earths as well - apparently, you can't have enough of them - so hopefully, the scooter will be a good runner, electrically. I am going to do myself a wiring diagram as soon as I get the engine back from Jonsey and get it all wired up, so that if I have to disassemble it, I have a chance of putting it all back together again. Incidentally, the blue wire (not the correct colour, I know... It's all we had) is the feed for the switch on my front brake light. The other wire is in there somewhere too.