So in light of my car dying and someone stealing my bicycle, I am able to prioritize working on some mopeds again. I already put the yellow ciao set up on a grande and have that as a daily rider, but now I'm working on salvaging even more of yellow ciao. It was my first vespa and having it back on the road in some formation would be awesome. I replaced the forks with a random pair of ciao forks that I salvaged from one of brad's abandoned, old, rusty ciao frames. My frame was twisted and a little gnarled. When I hit that downed tree it was like the impact went through the forks and conducted all the way to the back book rack where it twisted. After looking it over however, I think that the frame itself is not trashed. Since the book rack was trashed i found a way to cut off the twisted portion in order to salvage the seat post.
i reattached it to the frame using a few bolts and for now it has some integrity. I know that the weight of a rider however will put a lot of force on the bolts I used. In order to strengthen it later however, I'll have to weld or bolt on braces.
Next I worked on building up an engine. I put the 65 malossi on rebuilt engine I had laying around on it. I had trouble getting the kit sleeve in the engine cases however. I noticed that the crank also wouldn't turn freely. My intuition told me that the bearings were seated properly. So I took a torch to the cases for a little while and tapped them with a rubber mallet. This helped to position the bearing slightly enough that the crank was able to spin freely and the kit fit in the cases. It was a little snug still, but it worked. I mounted the engine and installed a 13.13 dellorto. Here's the bike thus far:
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