There must be a easier way!

I seldom do something that takes allot of time and effort without trying to think up a plan to do it easier faster or better. Exactly that happened when I started cleaning the first of a bucket full of rusted nuts and bolts. My first idea was to use my dremel with a wire brush, to be honest it took so long that by the time that I would have finished all of them the selling of petrol would have been banned by the UN.

Then the a idea dawned on me to use some kind of acid to magically etch the dirt and rust formed over the last 47 years of. I then got some swimming pool acid from my local hardware store and employed the little bit of chemistry knowledge that I got in school to build my own miniature acid dipping plant.

 

 I took thin pieces of stainless steal wire, tied it to each part that needed cleaning and dipped it into the pool acid for 10 minutes. After taking it out I neutralized the acid by dipping it into a bicarbonate of soda and water mixture that I made.

 

 

 

 With absolutely no effort the parts came out looking like they where just made in the factory!!!! now that's what I call easy. I hope that I haven't taken to many years of my life expectancy with the fumes that got me a couple of times, please be careful when trying this!!!

Pleas let me know if you know about a old Vespa standing around in the shed , it might just be a Sprint 150 that can be a donor for some much needed parts, I most importantly need a engine if I ever want this project to run.

 

 

 

 

 

 

How did it start

I used to own a Vespa about 15 years ago as a student , it was painted with black and white stripes like a zebra. It had a personality of its own and had to fix it next to the road with a piece of wire and cable ties many times. OK I have to admit that when I got it the odometer wasn't working and the last reading was 80000km. If Vespa Mileage was the same as dog years it meant that it had done about 560000km. The old machine had done its part to take its previous owners where they wanted to be.
I used to love the way that it made serious disgruntled people laugh when ever I pulled in next to them in traffic, trying to ignore me for the first few seconds and then bursting out with laughter.
I unfortunately had to sell it but always fancy-ed the idea of owning another Vespa one day.

This is where my new vespa story starts,

After breakfast at Biccs in Waterkloof with some friends I had a chat with Gavin the owner about the beautiful Vespas in front of his shop. I happen to mention to him that I would love to restore and own another Vespa one day. It Didn't take him more that 2 seconds to offer me a scooter that's been in his garage for the last couple of years. His plan was to restore it himself but he soon realized that he didn't have the time to get round doing it. When I asked him about the paying for it he refused to take money saying that it will give him enough pleasure just to see it going one day.

Well that said and done I hopped in my bakkie one night after work to go and fetch the scoot. When myself and Gavin started loading all the spare parts on my car we realized that the engine was missing. He had somebody break into his garage a few months ago and steal his wheelbarrow loading it with whatever they could find including the Vespa engine, probably to sell it as scrap metal for R20.

When I got home I couldn't wait to get the frame number to try and find out what model and year the scooter was. To my absolute delight it turned out to be a 1966 sprint 150 a real classic!!!

Now the work needs to start, I don't think I realize what I have got myself into, only time will tell but one think is for sure I'm determined to make a very big success out of this project

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