Lambretta is finished!

Lambretta, is finally done...well, not totally done, but it rides and stops. I need to get some hardware to tighten up the gear shifter and the throttle and a set of new brake shoes. But I love it as much as I had hoped! It's pretty hard to get used to riding a bike with such small wheels! I feel like I'm weaving all over the road while I ride it. :-)

Summer! Ride, build and ride!

No Posts for a long time... I've been to China and back literally.

Hey, good news though, I finally got the stuff to finish the Lambretta. I should be able to knock it out in the next few days. Pics coming soon :-)

I'm moving to a new home soon, and I'll have the full workshop up and running as soon as I can. Then back to work on the SR500 that I'd planned to have done by Feb. (when I got side tracked by the Lambretta.) It's gonna be a mean lookin' bike! None of the shine and polish of "Larry" the SR from the Vid. Just pure rock and roll.

Today I celebrate one month since I ordered my parts from Lambretta Works in San Francisco. Still no parts. The weather is truly lovely for a scooter ride, but I'll need a week to put parts on (if I ever get them) Since I'll be in China for the next month, it looks like I won't see the open road 'till July!

Do I complain too much?

MOTO GP!

Very happy to have the MotoGP hi-res season pass. I just watched the 125 and Moto2 races. Now for the big boys!

Pathetic showing from Lambretta. One of the Lambrettas didn't even make the first turn! The other retired well before the finish. DNF and DNF.

Tony Elias was awesome finishing 4th after trading his crutches for the bike and working the clutch with a stitched up left hand. Nice one, mate!

On the downside, I can't get the live timing to work from the MotoGP web site.

Hong Kong!

Just got the nod from the board at work, they're sending me to Hong Kong and China for 3 weeks! How does this relate to my two wheeled pursuits, you may ask? Welly, welly, well. This means that I get to visit Mr. Jimmy's SR shop in Hong Kong. He's the purveyor of tons of ultra juicy SR parts from Japan that are nearly unheard of in the States. He's a good guy and has fair pricing. I'll likely spend an afternoon there sourcing parts for the current and the next SR projects.

KID IN CANDY STORE.

Powdercoat

OOOOFFF! Man, I got some of the stuff back from Powdercoat today. It was mostly acceptable with the exception of the front brake drum. The backing plate was fine but the drum its self was pretty noticeably damaged by the multiple sand blasting sessions that were necessary to repeatedly re-do the finish. On the upside, he says he's willing to replace the item. Um, well I imported that from Japan- and It cost some serious money. I found an older version on ebay and I hope he'll go for that. It'll hopefully be a cheap way for him to replace the part and for me to have a sweet bike in the end.

Frustration

I'm fuckin' over the deadbeat shop owners that won't ship items to you after you order them. I ordered 250 bucks worth of parts from a Lambretta shop in California 2 WEEKS AGO! That jagoff told me that he "needs to finish a bike and then hell send my parts." Well, asshole, I have a bike to finish too!

The same shit is going on with my powder coat guy. I dropped off the stuff for my New SR500 build 9 weeks ago and he "had a problem with the spray booth" and still isn't done. I'm guessing that in this economy no one is spending money so they've forgotten how to do their jobs.

Preliminary assembly

Loosely assembled to see the progress and assess the fit of the bodywork. The silver is powder coated and the white is enamel. I'll be fitting the speedo, cables and electrics this weekend. Hopefully riding it by Sunday!

Horn cast...

And that's why I needed a new horncast!

HORNCAST FOUND!

After a difficult search I've found a horncast! I guess, it wasn't that difficult, but with this interweb thing we all use, searching has become so easy that anything longer than a day is exhausting! It took me a month and the help of the guys at Lambretta Works to find the horn casting. It needs to be shipped from Europe, but will likely be on the bike in a few weeks.

Feverish Pace

Working on the Lambretta with the determination of an ant colony. I've barely stopped to take pics. So far:

Scoot was stripped and body was divided into paint and powder coat piles.

Both piles sent to sandblasting

Paint pile was sanded, restored, primed and painted.

Powder coat pile was...well, powder coated.

All parts are are finished with the exception of the side panels that needed a touch of extra TLC. They will be painted tomorrow.

New badges and body embellishments have arrived. I'm waiting on the new rear seat and cover as well as the sew cables and speedo.

Final assembly should be complete by the end of this month.

The only road block I've hit was that when I tried to get the clutch arm off to send out for plating, I dis-engaged it from the splines inside the engine. So an oily afternoon is on the horizon to repair my stupid mistake. :-(

Working

Working again! Unfortunately that means less time for working in the garage. The Lambreatta will be a pretty quick build since the engine and mechanicals are good. Just cosmetic and electrical to be done. Parts are ordered but processing time has been pretty freakin' slow! I ordered the stuff 10 days ago and the order still shows as "processing" on my account page. I feel like a kid counting the days 'till my birthday. I just want to see the status changed to a ship date or a tracking number.

Rocker? Mod? Whatever, dude.

As a slight distraction from the Cafe Racer build, I'm working on repainting a '63 Lambretta I got for my wife for Valentine's day.

Great, big, honkin' order from Thumperstuff

I just got in the long anticipated order from Mark Apland. (All things considered It took forever because of my dragging ass deciding on the contents.)

I'll be putting in some hours tomorrow and the next day sorting out the wheels and suspension. I'll prob. make an order from Mike's XS as well. They have good quality fork tubes at a great price. I'll possibly try to get some Ikon shocks as well. This is shaping up to a sweet bike!

Piston arrived yesterday!

After a long wait for the guy from eBay to ship the piston (he forgot) I finally got it. I hope the machinist can punch out the cylinder quickly so I can get back on schedule. I'll also have him cut new valve seats while he's at it. I've already smoothed out the ports a bit. Nothing radical, no re-shaping just cutting down some of the casting seams and texture.

I also got the tapered bearings installed today. I'll need to order some new fork tubes from Mike's XS asap so I can re-build the forks.

The hubs and rims are at the powder coater and new spokes will be ordered shortly from Buchanan's. I've decided that Black rims and hubs will look pretty nice with chrome spokes! Hmmm pretty nice? or just plain SEXY!

Order from Thumperstuff

I just got off the phone with Mark Apland out at Thumperstuff in rainy Washington state. He's putting together a nice care package for me to finish building the engine. I pulled off the the covers and other than a few small anomalies ( cracked oil filter cover and a chewed up thrust washer on the starter assembly) the innards look pretty good. the bearings are tight and so is the rod. Thank God, I really hate splitting the cases! I'll rinse out the old oil sludge with some solvent and send off the barrel and head to the machinist for boring and re-cutting the valve seats.

It looks like I'll need to order some spokes from Buchanan's too. I need to match the front chrome spokes to the rear. I'll be powder coating the hubs and rims black. I just need to get off my ass and pull the rear hub out of the old rim.

First fitting of the body work

Test fitting the seat and tank with the new brackets and soon to be modified rear fender.

Still waiting to get my hubs powder coated, the tripple trees from my storage space and some new fork tubes. The look is there though. still need to make some decisions about the paint on the tank. It's an alloy Manx Norton style tank, but has a few dents in it (I think) I came painted like this. I don't want to have a Norton logo on the Yamaha. I'll likely strip it down soon and asses the dents to make up my mind n the paint.

Now, what the hell am I gonna do about a header and meggaphone?

First blood!

Be careful expanding springs, when they come back, the have some power! I had a spring recoil into my hand while installing the kickstand. not a lot of pain because the spring hook went all the way past my nerves, through my skin and into the sub-dermal fat.