We’ll be closed this weekend, on Friday June 20th 2008 and Saturday June 21st 2008 because we’re going to the PVSC rally. If you’re going too, be sure to come and browse our vendor stall there. We’ll have lots of rally only special offers plus used parts going for a song! Bring cash, because there are no credit card facilities at the rally site. I hope we’ll see you there. -A

I’ve added a music player with some tunes for you listen to during your day. Its pretty much just Northern Soul for now, but we’ll be adding more tunes as time goes by, if it all works out. There won’t be much current stuff for obvious reasons. No, we can’t send you the MP3 file But we can add tunes if you request them.

This is a trial run, so lets hope it works out.

-A

I went to see From The Jam last month, Bad Manners this month, and now BBC Radio 6s Queens of Noize spend an hour chatting about 2 Tone with Pauline Black from The Selecter! It might be 2008 but the music of 1979 is timeless.

Listen to it HERE

-Gene

I think I saw this documentary from British TV Channel 4 but until Vinny posted it up on one of the forums I frequent I had totally forgotten about it. Thanks for the reminder Vinny. It is not ‘alf bad. The You Tube poster put it up in 3 parts, due to You Tube length requirements:






Doh! Gene just came and looked at the post preview and said “I have that on video.”

-A

Two big problems going on with us right now!

Problem 1. The server that hosts our online store database is having problems. The rest of the website seems to be working fine (for now!!), but the online store is erroring out.

You’d think it would be easy enough to pick up the phone and call us on our free number to place your parts order, right? Not so fast, Sunny Jim That brings us to…

Problem 2. High winds in NJ on Thursday night have played havoc with our phone lines. This always happens when we have high winds here. Line 1 has a lot of static with the talking. Line 2 sounds like Doctor Who’s arch nemesis, the Daleks, every time some one speaks. A tech from those lovely people at Verizon sent some one out on Friday. He told me he had fixed the problem, only for me to test the lines and find we had absolutely no line 2 at all. No dial tone or anything. He fixed that, but still the Daleks were present, hijacking human voices. (Actually, on his way back from running an errand Gene caught the guy in his Verizon van, seat reclined all the way, napping, when he had told me he was looking at the main switch box!! He was working on our phones for about 2.5 hours allegedly. I had sight of him for about 15 mins. I wish I could take nice long naps at work- Hey Gene, how about that?).

 The tech then told me that he couldn’t fix the problem on his own and would be back at noon on Saturday with a work mate, as he couldn’t fix the problem at all on his own. By 1.30pm on Saturday, he still hadn’t turned up, and a call to Verizon showed that the wonderful man had actually booked the problem as all fixed. So, they send another guy, who really was genuinely nice. He takes one look at the lines outside and says he can see the problems, but he needs a cable guy with a bucket to test the connections at the top of all the poles.

 So, no fixy today, and I have the joy of dealing with Verizon for a 3rd day. It  gave me a headache dealing with them all day on Friday, mainly from banging my head against the wall  When I first reported the problem, the call centre said they would do a line check. When they called me back they informed me that their tests showed there was nothing wrong, I answered them, and they actually told me they couldn’t tell what I was saying because of the crackling, but still said there was nothing wrong. Doh!

 I have no idea when the database for the online store will be available either, but you can bet I’ll be keeping a close eye on it.

 -A

 Update at 5.45pm EDT, Sat. March 22. Thanks to the wondeful Phiya at Dreamhost, the Online store is back up and running, AND as a bonus, this smart tech gave me tips on how to fix it myself next times it happens. I love that kind of help. You reading that Verizon?

Anyway, if you notice anything else odd going on with the website, leave me a comment on the blog. I get the comments on my cellphone. See why I need naps at work now?  

 -A

A few months of un-prepped winter storage, the first day of 65 degree weather, and a desire to ride don’t always go well together.

If you put your scooter away in good running condition, and now that its time to grab a quick ride on a warm winter day, and it won’t start. Here are some simple things to check so your day isn’t ruined!

Keeping in mind that two-stroke scooters require 3 simple things to run, it’s easy to check through them quickly to see where your starting problem might lie.

Air – Spark – Gas.

In most cases, either a new spark plug, or just a quick clean of the pilot jet will get you back on the road.

Air – two or three months isn’t normally enough time for some small animal to take up residence in your scooter and block the air hose with acorns. So it is probably not air flow to the carburettor.

Spark – remove your spark plug cap, then unscrew the spark plug (check the end for gas – see below). Push the cap back onto the spark plug, and holding the HT lead while dangling the spark plug with its “sparking” end resting on something metal, gently kick the scooter over. You should see a spark. If you don’t, make sure the ignition is turned on and any kill switch turned off and try again. Still no spark, try another plug. Still no spark, check your points gap if you have points. If you still don’t have a spark, check your HT Lead to make sure it isn’t loose. If you still dont have spark the problem could be something more involved, for example – wires loose internally, a coil has gone bad, etc all things you wouldnt expect if your scooter was running when you put it away for the winter.

Gas – If you have turned on the ignition switch, opened the choke, opened the fuel valve and tried to start your scooter and its not starting, the first thing to check for is spark (see above) and gas flow. When you first remove your spark plug, you can also check the end of it to see if it is wet with gas. If it is not, then the culprit could very well be (and is in many cases) a blocked pilot jet or more rarely, blocked fuel line.

On both Vespa and Lambretta you can check fuel flow by loosening the inlet banjo *briefly* to see if fuel flows out. Open the fuel tank to check that the breather hole in the gas cap hasn’t corroded over.

When a scooter sits, any gas in the carb will evaporate over time, leaving behind a residue, particularly bad in pre-mix scooters, but not limited to just them.  The pilot jet is easy to get to on most stock, older Vespa and Lambretta and involves just a couple tools.

Vespa: a regular screwdriver will remove the cover, filter and the pilot jet so you can get it out to clean.
Lambretta: a regular screwdriver to loosen the air hose, then a 8mm socket to undo the carb clamp, wiggle it off and then a regular screwdriver to under the bowl.

On a Vespa the pilot jet is the smaller of the two jets near the big opening

On a Lambretta the pilot jet is the one on the far left if you are looking at the carb in its mounted position. Another way to tell is that it is not the one in the middle, nor the one under the choke mechanism.

To clean the jet, you need to be very careful, as the part that is blocked is the tip of the jet, similar to the pointed tip of a needle. To clean this out, you can, very gently, use a single strand of old cable, preferably an old throttle cable as the strands are thinner. Just poke it in the hole to clean the gunk out. Don’t wiggle it about too much, or run the cable strand through repeatedly or you will damage the jet and could cause other problems.

Reassemble, check your tire pressures, and go for a ride!

-Gene

Two dutch guys, Bart and Rene, who are into Urban Exploring, visited what remains of the abandoned Innocenti factory in Milan this month and took some photographs of its current condition. Bart reports ”Demolition has just started, so we came just in time!”.

The factory buildings covered a huge area, and other parts of it have been demolished over the years. I always held a secret hope in my heart that some rich philanthropist would buy up the remains and save the last pieces. Yeah, I know. I’m a dreamer.

Its so sad to see just a beautiful building in such a condition. Even if I don’t take into account the scooter history of these buildings, it still saddens me.  

Thanks to BBS user “Strom Thurmond” for posting up the link there.

The factory has fallen into this condition since owners of the time, BMC closed its doors in 1972.

 Roberto Morelli has more pictures from the past, including some from a visit in 1995 on his website.

-A

 

It’s funny how things go around. 20 years ago Police scooters were bought by scooterists mostly to strip for parts or to use as a base for a restoration. 

The first police scooter ScootersO ever found was a Lambretta TV200. The markings were hard to see under the poorly painted side panels.

After that first one, other Police scooters started to pop up: Vespa Sprints, Vespa P150Xs and Serveta Lambrettas.  These scooters got me wondering more about these Police scooters and their history.

I tracked down the importer who handled the Serveta NYPD sales (he does not have any parts or scooters left!), got some tidbits of information from him, and kept my eyes peeled for any news clippings or stories I could find.

Over time I was able to piece together a timeline of the makes and models of scooters used by the NYPD.

The first police scooters seem to have been small batches purchased for special purposes – the earliest seems to have been the Parks Commission – who bought Vespas in the early 60s.  Throughout the mid to late 60s various branches of public service bought scooters in small numbers. It wasn’t until Innocenti were looking to break back into the US market that the NYPD bought a large fleet of scooters.

Unable to handle the US relaunch themselves, Innocenti Italy gave Lambretta Concessionaires Ltd in the UK the rights to distribute scooters to the US (and Australia).  As can be seen from the press release above, from a UK scooter magazine, up to 400 Lambrettas may have been part of this initial Italian scooter order.

Although the article mentions the DL model, personal research has shown that due to the labor dispute problems the factory in Milan was having at that time, the order was filled instead with Li 150 Series 3 with some modifications. This batch of scooters seems to have been supplied with whatever parts the factory had lying around.  These early models were painted in dark green and white, which were the NYPD colors at the time.

The typical Italian Li 150 Series 3 Police Lambretta seems to have featured:
SX Headset (to allow an ignition switch to be fitted), black body rubbers and plastics, plastic toolbox, forks using the push-in buffers, handlebar switches with black buttons, DL bench seats, SX150 engine cases, and their VIN numbers are higher than most reported VIN runs for the Li150 – as the auction sheet below shows.

The initial batch of Italian Lambrettas proved very popular, so when the Italian factory stopped production, scooter supply switched to the Spanish factory.

 

US distribution switched to a NJ company who expanded NYPD sales to over 1000 machines. These Spanish machines were the blue and white models most commonly associated with the NYPD, and one is featured in the NY Police museum.

The Pasco, a product of the Brazilian Lambretta factory in Sao Paulo, was imported in the mid 70s by the NJ distributor, at Serveta’s insistence, in an attempt to secure orders from the NYPD and give their new factory some sales. Needless to say the NYPD turned down this new Lambretta, and instead decided to keep using the Spanish models, for at least a few more years. This resulted in a few Pascos being sold around NJ through the distributor’s retail outlet.

Sometime around 1976 or 1977, the NYPD switched to the Vespa Sprint 150 V and shortly after, in 1979, the P150X – a model specially imported just for the police. The P125X and P200e were the commercially available models. Vespa pulled out of the US in the early 80s, and although the NYPD kept the vehicles in operation as long as possible, they had to switch to Japanese scooters by the end of the 80s.

I doubt there are still batches of Lambrettas or Vespas to go up for auction from the NYPD, which means the few that are surfacing should be preserved for historical reasons. We will do our part by restoring the NJ Police scooter we have found.

-Gene

We woke up to a fair few inches of snow today. Its still coming down, and I haven’t seen or heard a snow plow yet. The roads outside our house are really messy, and its a pretty well travelled main road, so we’ve decided not to go into the shop. If the snow lets up and they clear the roads later we’ll go in.

-A

I get asked this question all the time, especially by riders who are relatively new to the scooter scene.

The truth is, I can’t tell you. I can only tell you my opinion – which type of rallies I like best and why.

I really dislike camping, yet my favourite scooter rallies are the camping rallies when everything is held on the one site. Sounds strange, huh? I suppose it is but there are things about camping rallies that I really love, that don’t happen to the same extent at city or hotel based rallies.

For me, what makes the rally extra enjoyable are the other people in attendance. If there’s a good crowd, that you get on with, or get to know it can make that particular rally really memorable. At camping rallies, there’s lots of sitting around, talking, getting to know people time. You all have your tent pitched at the same site. You spend the rally weekend hanging out with your fellow scooterists, sitting talking, drinking, eating and laughing, from when you first get up in the morning, till last thing when you finally crawl into your tent for sleep time. During that time you get to know people pretty well, especially your campsite neighbours. I’ve made friendships that have lasted for years and years that way.  

I like to drink a beer or two, and when camping, love that my tent is never more than a few foot steps away.  Camping rallies with big bonfires are great. The conversations and shennanigans that start up amongst the people sitting round the bonfire are priceless! The brave souls who do the naked rides always make me giggle like a loon.

Of course camping rallies always entail a walk to the bathroom, but I’ve actually come to enjoy that. I always end up noticing a Vespa or Lambretta parked by some one’s tent that catches my eye, and stopping to ask questions about it. Not every scooter is parked out in the main area.

City rallies, or rallies where people stay in lots of different hotels are great, don’t get me wrong. I love the craic, but you spend a lot more time running from event venue, to event venue. Its not all on the same site and all that running around gets me a little tired and stops me from relaxing as much. Depending on the city, hotels can put a severe dent in your pocket book, as can getting a taxi from the evening event back to your hotel when you’ve had a drink. All that running around cuts down on your hanging out time, and I often find myself saying to people “we never got any time to chat”.

 Of course, being a girl, I do like to try and look my best, and some camping rallies can test a girl’s patience in that respect. However, I’ve come up with strategies to appease my vanity. Bottled water, baby wipes and those facial cleansing towels are great. I can usually find somewhere to plug my beloved hair straighteners in, and if not, hair ties come in handy. A rechargeable lantern for my tent works wonders and in case it gets cold at night I pack some Thermacare heating pads. (I can hear the boys laughing already).

I do miss the convenience of a hotel when camping. I suppose my ideal here in the USA would be to have holiday camp rallies like those they have in the UK. I attended the Woolacombe 2007 rally in September last year. The organisers, South West Scooter Clubs, take over a whole holiday camp, and everyone stays in the chalets and caravans onsite. There’s even camping if you insist . I stayed with friends in a 3 bedroom chalet. It had a kitchen, bathroom, dining area and living room. It even had a washing machine and tumble dryer, which came in handy when Buster got gunked by King Kurt. People kept dropping by and visiting each others chalets. The evening events were in the holiday camp’s ballroom, and another large room was used for the Northern Soul room. Because it was all on the same site I got to meet lots of old friends, and get to know loads of new ones, just like a US camping rally, but I had all the conveniences of a hotel, and my hair was perfectly straight every day!! The trouble is, the Holiday Camp idea never really took off over here in the States.

Camping rallies have become less and less common these days, and I’ve really come to lament that trend. So come on, US scooter clubs, don’t let the traditional camping rally die!!

As for rallies this year that we’ll be going to? Well, Niagara for one. We’d hate to miss that, especially as this year is Ian Whalley’s last one as an organiser. Pittsburgh Vintage Scooter Club what are you guys doing this year? I heard rumours that there may not be a camping rally. Please say that is not so. Let us know huh? We’re booked to fly out to California in April for The Unforgiven Scooter Club Hedonism Rally.

 Right now I’m not sure what else. Last year I rode up to Boston for the Boston Stranglers rally, but I’ve made no definite plans for that this year. There’s so many other rallies I’d like to go to, but we can’t close the shop every weekend to go. Any suggestions?

Anyway, getting back to the topic on hand, pick a rally and go. Talk to as many people as you possibly can and chill out, relax and enjoy yourself. Rallies are supposed to be fun, and don’t forget that!!

-A