Partly there

So, now that the plan of approach has been made it’s time to collect all the required parts. We basically have three categories:

·      -   Replacement parts (broken or missing parts)

·      -  Upgrade parts (better than the old)

·      -  Running parts (gaskets, seals etc.)

First trip me and my mate made was to Maskes (www.maskes.nl), a big oldtimer Vespa restoration and parts company. My purpose was to source most of the running parts and get some first hand tuning advice. Running parts aren’t the most interesting to buy, they will be placed mostly out of sight and just serve a single purpose: keep the Vespa running.

Maskes is located in an old leather tannery, a beautiful old industrial building. Inside they have a huge workshop, a full floor designated for displaying Vespa gems and a floor with old parts which they collected over the years.

The owner always lets us wander about a bit, so we just took everything in. First time I came to Maskes must more than 10 years ago, but I still manage to find things that I haven’t seen in previous vists. He has a couple beautiful Faro Basso’s standing around including a Sei Giorni replica (more info on Sei Giorni her: https://www.piaggiogroup.com/en/archive/press/vespa-sei-giorni-origins-legend), and I believe at least three SS90 Vespa’s (more info here: https://silodrome.com/vespa-ss90/), or maybe even one or two of them are original…

(most of the above pictures courtesy of my friends girlfriend)

Now for the parts, we bought oil seals, gaskets gaskets and more gaskets, oil, teflon cabels and more assorted stuff. The one replacement part we bought was a legshield Vespa logo that was missing, not the original, not the best possible replica, but the cheapest one, because I still have hope I will find an original one day!

I also already bought some replacement parts. I did some more sourcing on the German Ebay and picked up a true gem there, a replacement complete ‘lenker’, otherwise known as a handle bar or a steer. This is from an original Vespa VM1T Faro Basso and was re-chromed to look absolutely new.

On the Italian Ebay I managed to find a good quality Vespa VM1T rear light, for about half of what the major shops are asking for it. The old lady has a non-standard rear light currently, which incorporates the Italian number plate, it looks nice enough but I want it back to original.

I am waiting for a huge list of upgrades parts from Maskes, basically all I need to start giving the old lady that souped up pacemaker to make that old heart pump like the heart of teenager who sees their crush walking by in the school hallway.

And I ordered a whole lot of additional running parts from an Italian web shop to have everything at the ready when we start the surgery, you don’t want to be without needle and thread when you have to start stitching things up. So more gaskets, rubber parts, springs, bolts, clamps etc.

The bill is already running up, lets just say that we are close to investing around 7000€ in this project... Oh and I have some old parts coming from Germany, suspension, cooling cowl fly wheel protector etc. Good thing I don't have a wife at the moment or I'd be dead (and the fiancé is out of the country)!