The Payoff

Three months later, this is the final result of non-stop Lambretta tinkering.

I thought putting the bike back together would be easier than taking it apart because there would be no need to saw rusty screws off. And it was easy for the most part. But I ran into some problems putting the trim on. I learned that to get the rubber on the bike it's best to let the rubber bake in the sun for a while to loosen it up.

I kept the hole in the legshield so I could put this old-school 70's bolt on mirror which I think turned out to be the right move.

And I didn't have a rivet gun so I got a buddy at Vespa Dallas to do the honors (I couldn't bare botching up as set of new-old-stock SIL badges that I'd ordered from England because I didn't have the right tools.)

I got the bike buttoned up just in time for a huge classic car/motorcycle cruise night that was happening 20 miles from my house. I rode two-up with my girlfriend on the Princess without a problem. I easily hit 50 mph on busy Dallas streets. It felt great!

But as soon as we started back home, I snapped a clutch cable. And in my hurry to reassemble the bike, I didn't put the spare cables back in my glove box. So, for nearly an hour, I rode two-up in first gear topping out at a maximum 12 mph. I got a mile and a half from my house before I completely ran out of gas (Holly was not amused.) A friend was passing by and took us home in his pickup.

I got the cable changed. And a few days later I rode the bike to meet some friends and I lost both the headlight and the tailight! At night. Of course.

Anthony rewired the bike and sort out my singed junction box.

Now I'm on to changing the clutch --- it's slipping pretty bad --- and putting in a real gas tank and a fuel tap so I don't have to take the panel off and manually turn the gas off everytime I shut the bike down.

Wish me luck.

Reassembly

The paint is now as good as it's going to look. There are few or no runs, but there are some minor imperfections and a few spots where the finish isn't even, but it looks way better than I thought it would for a first time paint job.

Frankly, I couldn't wait to put the bike back together. Having shit all over my back yard while I've been painting the bike has kept me motivated. I had to clear out my garden shed to use it as a paint booth and had nowhere else to put the contents for the shed other than underneath the car port. Looking at a bunch of refuse every day kept me focused to put that bike back together if for no other reason than so I could reclaim my shed.

I started with the floor boards and worked my way up.

I debated repainting the air and tool boxes, but decided to leave them alone. They both shined up fairly well. I'd rather save original paint where ever I can --- just weird that way. However, they look pretty stupid sitting next to the orange lawnmower gas tank on the bike. But that will hopefully be gone as a new tank is in the mail to me.

It's exciting putting everything back together. I've never seen a black GP 150 before (that's certainly not what showed up on my doorstep two months ago) and it's coming together before my eyes.

I'm already running into a couple of issues. The first one is that the leg shield rubber is a bitch to get back on. I fool with it for nearly and hour and decided to move on to something easier and come back to that. I'm going to leave the rubber out in the sun and heat it up to see if that will help it loosen up enough to fit on the shield.

Also, one of the floor rails is not matching up correctly. I'm going to have to cut it a bit and drill a new hole for it to make it fit. And it's really hard getting the rubber into the floor rail without bending the crap out of the rails. I'm probably doing it all wrong, but I've got two of them finished.

Shiny maidens, all in a row

Here's the great thing about two-stage paint: no matter how bad the finish looks after the clear coat is applied, you can always wet-sand over the surface and respray more clear coat to cover up runs and rough patches.

Every one of these parts looked horrible after they were first painted: the panels were rough and uneven; the headset clear coat was smooth on the top but rough on the sides; and the front fender was a complete disaster and had bare spots in the paint after I sanded down the first layer of clear.

Not to worry. After some light wet sanding and a shot of spot color to cover up bare spots in the paint, I put down a final coat of clear that this is the result!

The GP stripes took some patience. I sprayed the panels --- as well as the back of the stripes --- with some soapy water so the stripes could be moved around after application. The hardest part of the job was getting the protective paper off the top of the stripes. As you pull off the paper, the stripe will come up off the surface of the panel. So I had to go slow. As soon as the paper was off, I used a straight edge to get the air bubbles out of the stripe, let them dry, and admired my amateur-as-hell work.

For the first time in years, the Princess is all one color

I debated all week if I should wet sand some or all of the parts I painted last weekend. A few parts like the bridge and the horn cover came out excellent. But the floorboards, the panels and especially the front fender had lots of orange peel and rough spots. I worried if I wet sanded and shot the parts again, they would just look worse.

Also, I was not happy with the spray gun I was using. It was extremely hard to clean and I didn't fully understand how to dissemble it to get it clear of old paint and clear coat. So I spent $25 bucks on another type of sprayer on Amazon. It's a detail gun, which doesn't hold as much paint and needs to be filled a few times during a job. Yet it turned out to be much better than the first one --- it had an internal filter and it came with a brush to clean the paint can. I bought a bunch of paint thinner to scrub it down with after each use.

I decided to wet sand everything. I hit a bare spot on the front fender and dropped the headset while sanding it, nicking the paint, so I decided to re-shoot the headset and the front fender again with color just where the bare spots were.

I cleaned the hell out of the gun after the first use, and discovered how important that is. There was no initial jamming or uneven spray this time after repeated use.

The new gun really did perform better. Either that, or I finally got the hang of how the gun is supposed to work. The paint went on much smoother and there were no runs. The clear coat really covered and smoothed out the parts I had painted last weekend --- the panels now shine like mirrors.

Unfortunately, I ran out of clear coat. And I'll have to wait until the paint store opens next week to get more. I'll spend Sunday wet sanding the main part of the bike like I did the parts I shot last weekend.

The paint is looking like it's going to turn out way better than I thought.

Back in Black

After drafting a plan of action, all that's left to do is load up the air gun with paint and get after it.

I test some of the smaller parts --- and a part I might not even use --- as the first victims. I botch the spare wheel cover by coating it too thick with paint. It has a pretty obvious run. But once it's there, you can't sand the paint. You have to wait until after the clear coat is on. So I just don't worry about it. I may not even use the spare tire cover.

I have the hang of it by the time I paint the headset and the horn cover.

I wait a day and to paint the panels and the rear floor boards and the front fender. I have trouble getting the sprayer to work, I mess with it for about 20 minutes and by the time I get it working again, the paint has been in the gun too long. So it comes out in stringy streams on the front fender. Oh well. I reload the gun with fresh paint and keep adding coats to the fender hoping the paint will smooth. It does, to some extent.

I hit everything with clearcoat, and re-spray the head set. I also wet sand the spare tire cover and the glove box door because they have runs in them. The head set finish is a bit hazy, and the glove box door is better but far from perfect. The front fender is OK on the top, but a rough disaster on the sides. It'll have to be wet sanded and shot again with clear coat.

The panels come out OK. The paint is even, but the clear coat isn't. I may just leave it alone. It's shiny and durable. That really all I care about. As you can see, the spare cover came out looking marginal at best. Still, it's black and shiny. It will repel rain and cover the spare tire for years to come.

By the way, I wear a resperator, goggles and a ridiculous pair of disposable overalls when I paint. You should too, if you're dumb like me and decide to paint a scooter in your back yard.

Smooth as a baby's butt

Finally, after hours of wet sanding, dry sanding and sanding with an electric wheel, I consider changing my name to Sandy Duncan.

Really, I just reach a point where I've done enough sanding that the body panels are smooth enough for factory work and it probably won't look ridiculous when I paint. I'm done sanding.

The legendary Anthony Armstrong comes over and helps tape the bike up again to get ready for paint. Anthony has taken three rusty, piece of crap Lambrettas and turned each of them daily ridden, show winning masterpieces, all by being meticulous. Anthony is a dude who is so proficient with rattle cans that he can make paint bought at Auto Zone look factory.

My problem is I am not nearly as patient as Anthony. Having him come over is a huge help because he stops me from taking short cuts that would ruin the paint. I was about to paint the disassembled scooter inside my shed. Anthony thinks that's a stupid idea because I'll get overspray on everything. He's right.

We set up a painting areas outside of the shed. The plan is to pain paint a part, take it back into the shed to dry, while I paint another section of the bike. It's not as good as having a paint booth or a garage to work in, but it should keep the random leaf, bug or bird dropping off my fresh tacky paint. Genius!

Fork up

The front forks on the bike where originally painted black, like the rest of the bike. But the forks are scratched and rusty. They'll look horrible if I've got a new paint job and beat forks. So I decide to paint the forks now before I spray the legshield and body with two-stage paint and avoid overspray mess.

I consider going two routes with the forks. I could paint them the original black. But I don't really like that look. Here's why. Lambretta forks are so distinctive that they're meant to stand out. And that's probably why many original Lambrettas have silver forks. Most Indian SILs and all Italian GPs had silver forks. Since I'm going to use rattle cans on the forks to save time and money (the two-stage paint I'm using is 50 bucks a pint, mind you), I spray a couple of different silvers on the forks. It looks terrible --- the kind of paint I'm using looks cheap and metallic.

I start over, this time with gun metal grey. I spray it with four coats of Rustoleum and it comes out looking sort of like polished bare metal. I. Like. This. Look.

I may change my mind later. But for now, I'm going to prep and paint the rusty-as-balls wheels and the kickstand with the same gun metal grey Rustoleum. It may not be original. But hopefully, it'll look mean when I'm done.