On Maters of Size...

So one of the features that the Silver Surfer has, is the spiffy glove box behind the leg shield... A lot of Vietnamese Vespas have these, & a lot have super cool Mod-Squad style Union Jacks & stuff on the doors....

Not the Surfer; Silver door only!

Despite this, I do find the glove box bloody useful.

A diary, mail, house keys, spare shopping bag, water bottle & a spare L plate for the Child Bride... all this with room to spare. How good are the old Vespas! The eagle eyed readers will note the bodgey wiring...

When I go to collect the mail from the post box, I find that the glove box is the best way to cart the letters home. It is also big enuf to fit a water bottle (in the case that I should get thirsty, OR, if the Surfer should get mad at me & decide to break down when I am hooning about the place, which would see me push him home!

Even though the box isn't truely waterproof, it does keep things fairly well out of harms way & I seem to be able to fit a poo-load of stuff in there...

So Mote it Be

Leigh

Leaving Home

Sorry for the lack of posts; unfortunately, I have been rather busy in the old “Fix up the House before you sell it” mode, which was then rather quickly followed by “OH crap, I now have to pack everything up so that you can live in a shoebox” mode!

Due to me valuing my marrage to the Child Bride, this has seen me become a very domesticated house Husband/Home Handyman type for the past couple of months...not to mention the hobby destroying time known to most Australians as Christmas has also stopped my earstwile Cubbing

Short answer of what I have been up to (Cub/Vespa/Lambretta-wise) is “Nuffin’…”

No stupid rides, No short trips to the shops, no posing at café’s… NUFFIN”

I did have time to (rather naughtily) Take Dan for a last spin up & down the street in which we live… (Benny wasn’t interested, so he & the Child Bride sat on the verge & poked fun at us & our nostalgic spin on the Surfer)

Even for a spin in the front verge we have our helmets! (yep, safety-nerd alert!)

Dan just loved playing with the Surfers horn button; which, whilst rather noisey was better than the Kill switch that he was pressing before the ride!

A short circle infront of the Auld House before the Surfer moved - yes, I know it is a touch naughty, but give me a break - I am sharing a memory that no-one would otherwise know about!

The trailer that we bought turned out to be OK for scooter moving; however, at some stage in the future it will need a couple of tie down points in side the tray (as tieing the scooters in was a complete pain in the bum!)

The ramps were el-cheapo units from an autoparts store & the tying in is bodgey-esque in the extreme. But both scooters made it to where they needed to go in one piece

 

Cub wise, I have carefully packed up the Love Cub… mostly into a box with a super-tacky sticker on the outside… so to avoid the confusion with all the other boxes of crap belongings that we have stacked all over the place (with some other random scooter stuff as well). From past experience when I have moved houses (in the long distant past) I know that there will always be a couple of small things that go missing, so I had started to pack the love Cub well & truly before the move (pretty much as soon as the Child Bride & I decided to list the Auld House for sale). 

I have rather deviously, not contacted the Motor Trimmer, as I reckon that it is better to have the seat safe at his place, rather than kicking around in the move & getting damaged...also, he was shut over the Christmas break...

The Sliver Surfer & the Lambretta are now living in a farm shed (which, when you consider that they are refugees from Vietnam probably means that they have returned to a spiritual home (because I recon at some time in the last couple of decades they were some farmers vehicle of choice…)

On the upside, I have access to a rather large shed in which to tinker & fondle the scooters in until  until we get our life together & build the future home of Planet Meaghers (& a scooter repository)

The new home... for the time being

So Mote it be

Leigh

The Casting Couch

I hope the saucy nature of that title got a few looks!

OK, so polishing a motor by hand is something of a complete trainspotter thing to do – so it is just as well that I am up to the challenge!

Well I was happy… steel wool in hand… sweating away listening to the rather dodgy esoteric music choices when I rolled the Love Cubs engine over & started work…

Just after I realised that the grease was a casting ripple (Yes I do know that there is a chuck of metal missing from the exhaust port)

After - Looking OK (not perfect, but that is OK)

That is when I noticed… the Casting flaws… (Cue bad music that goes Bah Bah Baaaaaah!!!)

I had noticed the small flaws in the casting when I was working on the other bits of the motor, but I had never really noticed this bit … until now!

The section is on an area not readily seen from the top of the motor (& to be honest, I thought it was oily grime when I first started to clean it, it was only after a bit of elbow grease that I realised it was in fact a casting flaw.

OK love cub, Challenge accepted!

Out with the wet & dry to start getting the aluminium back to what I think it should look like!

The other side of the argument is that these flaws are not material & have been part of the Love Cubs Mighty Powerplant for the past 42 years, so I really should just accept that they are part of the anatomy of the wee beasty… but that would be far too simple & that is not what the Love cub is about after all!

So… four hours later & a heap more music…. Ta dah… looking good… in fact, it is looking like the engine casing is headed on the way to looking better than new!

So Mote it be

Leigh

Finally a Ride

Well, I did get to go for a ride on Friday morning. The glorious surfer went quite well too.

Over to the train station to purchase my trip to Sydney on Sunday afternoon, then off to the other side of town to drop of some paperwork, then, I took the silver surfer to the hardware store, this was an easy thing as I needed a pad lock only!

The interesting thing about a ride like this is that it is exactly the sort of environment that these bikes were invented for; just nipping down the road to get something, see someone, do something… It just works so well at this job, No wonder they are just so dam popular!

When I got to the Hardware store, I made sure I had a good park - I wanted to get some blood pressure up from those that cut me off in traffic... 

Now, taking a Vespa to a hardware store may seem odd, BUT, on the upside, as you have worked out, I am something of an impulse buyer at times, thus there is a positive to riding a Scooter to the hardware store; as I only wanted a padlock & some screw in hooks which would fit in my scooter glove box I did not need the trusty Rhonda the Honda, or Falcon, thus all the other cool things that I could easily have justified buying were not able to be purchased, that is I kept the $50 bill in my pocket!

Money saved is money earned – thus I have earned another $50 to spend on the scooter addiction – and at the moment, I reckon that the $50 would go quite a long way to the engine works at the moment!

So mote it be!

Leigh

The Tacky scooter sticker

So when I was at the auto-parts store I noticed some rather risqué if not entirely tacky stickers (obviously designed for cars)... Sexy and sexist, tacky yet fun - bogan to their core

 I just had to have one!

So of all the tacky stickers available I bought the surfer chick one (I refuse to participate in flag waving crap that a lot of people get involved in – especially tacky bikini chicks draped in some countries flag). . . But cheesytackyshit is 100% cool in my book!

The start of the Crass!

Thus, the surfer has a secret tattoo on the inside of the engine cover (thus not ruining the Surfers fabulous silver skin that the rest of the world look at)

Old singlets make good cleaning rags!

Like all embarasin' Tattoos- they are best kept where they a seen by the fewest amount of people !

This is kinda fun; I have empowered the inner bogan - again. And I may just have to do this again... May be the next time I go to a shop that sells this type of smut stuff I'll get another complimentary one to fill in spots on the inside of the engine cover and the glove box… or maybe not… I’m sure I’ll tell the world if I do!

If I do get some more of these stickers, they will definitely be hidden away from view!

So Mote it be!

Leigh

Polishing me motor

Well I have reached that quiet time in the Saga of the Love Cub, where the sexy stuff has happened quite quickly, but the stuff that will make the cub sexy later on, well it is all underway… but is not very sexy right now!

At the moment, I am working on the engine... But only on the cosmetic bits! As such, I have been busy with the 0000 grade steel wool and the wet and dry sandpaper AND elbow grease… getting busy with the engine!

The starting point - as seen from the blasters

Just before I started - the block is incredibly clean!

I should be honest at this point & say that, on reflection, I don’t think the engine was soda blasted; rather I suspect it was a very fine grit & the guys cleaned the engine & frame when they were doing something else (that was slightly more durable…) oh well, it is a classic example of you gets what you pays for!

But back to the polishing; The silly boys were at school... so I had Lenny dog for company, this meant that I was listening to a whole heap of heavy metal and punk rock (read the Dropkick Murphies, Dead Kennedys, Frenzel Rhomb, Metallica & Motorhead...) as such, the toiling away is not too bad when you put your preferred form of music on!

FYI - The Child Bride & my other close family members do not necessarily like my taste in music; that's OK, I was listening in the shed by myself so it was my guilty little secret!

At this point I want to state that I don't want a nearly chrome-like finish on my engine, but rather, I will aim for a nice "brushed" aluminium finish… we will see where we end up on this count when I have finished the Cub!

Just starting out... the wire brush for the "wire Brushed look"

Anyway after about 3 days of polishing I have a semi completed side cover. I think I'll buy some lower grit wet and dry to remove the last of the deeper scratches better with the one that I used. I think the Honda magneto cover will actually come up rather well when I get it done; it is basically a case of elbow grease curing the issue!

Getting Somewhere - note the iron fillings from the steel wool following the magnetic pattern

By the way, for anyone out there being silly enough to want to polish an aluminium engine block by hand, I advise wearing gloves. I have an elasticised cloth pair with a rubberised face. They keep the oxide out of your fingers, as well as protecting them from the real wear & tear that sand paper & steel wool inflict upon fingers! It may seem obvious to say it, but guess what; at the end of day one, the oxide & grit had really worked its way into every crevasse in my right hand!

The next issue is: I do know that I really should polish the engine after stripping and inspecting the case internally (thus you don't waste energy on polishing scrap). Yes, I agree, but, I also think that as the engine is a Honda and was it running before I pulled it apart, therefore (I hope) I'll be alright!

I should also have cleaned the 40 years of grime off of the magneto & sprocket area before I started! Is it a case of up there for thinking & down there for dancing, or, up there for dancing & down there for thinking (given the for on this bit, I’d probably say the latter!) in my defence, I did start out as a bit of a trial to see what it would look like!

Oh the grime build up! You can see some of the shine from teh block polishing too

The next confession that I have is: that I Googled the idea! As I said when I got the engine and frame back, I was not 100% happy with the finish of the engine alloy bit. Thus I started with a search on the web about polishing Aluminium... Anyway, I convinced myself that I could make a feature of the side covers at least... Now I am so pleased with my start that I'll do the entirety of the cub’s 50cc heart - it's just that it'll take some time!

I will need to get some of the clear alloy engine coating - I need to have an engine block worthy of clear coating before I clear coat the thing (it is a case of walking before you run!) When I was looking at some of the Aluminium polishing ideas on the web, & some of the products come off rather easily after the application of the required thinners, I am hoping that I can polish the engine, then use a clear coat (this will “protect the engines look when it is being re-built) & if required, reapply the clear coat before the engine is put back into the frame (that is, use the first lot of clear coat as a protecting coat.

Before

After - You can see the difference (even though these photos are not the best)

Thus far the results do look good; I'll just have to maintain the focus & ensure that I get the engine block done!

So Mote it Be

Leigh