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.

Primer screw up

I've never painted a scooter before, other than minor touch up work with spray cans. I've certainly never attempted anything that involves two-stage paint and a spray gun. But I own an air compressor. So I bought a spray gun for $30 to use with my compressor. I also buy $150 worth of paint and supplies at an auto paint store.

I need a place to paint and store the bike. So I cleaned out my garden shed to use as a paint booth.

I start by applying the primer. Unfortunatly, the first air compressor I use only produces about 20 PSI so the primer goes on too thick and uneven. I switch to another compressor that pumps out 100 PSI and the rest of the primer went on much smoother. But unfortunately, the damage was done with my initial coating of primer and I'm destined to spend another two weekends sanding the bike.

Totally naked

Once the bike is apart, mostly, I can see how much body work has to be done. There's some pin hole rust on one of the side panels and at the bottom of the front fender, but it's really fairly minor. There's a ding in the leg shield that needs to be filled in with Bondo, and some in a few other spots, but the metal on the scooter is over all in great shape.

Taking the bike apart

I take a three-day weekend and devote as much time as possible to prepping the bike for paint. I take every body panel off I can to make the paint job better. Because this bike has been stored outside for so long, most of the metal screws holding the sheet metal together are rusty as hell. PB Blaster is no match for the screws. So I waste an entire day hacksawing 20 nasty rusty screws off the floor rails on the bike.

I decide not to remove the leg shield. I could take the foot brake apart and get it off, but I need to do some work on a few dents so I figure I might as well leave it on. Some of the original paint is still on the hard to reach areas, I'm going back with the original color, so I leave well enough alone and focus on the parts of the bike where the paint is gone.

Lambretta purists scoff at Indian Lambrettas because they weren't produced in Italy. But SIL bought Innocenti's Lambretta plant in Milan, lock stock and barrel in 1971 when the plant shut down. When I started looking at the parts, over 60 percent of them were stamped "Innocenti" including the horn cast, the headset and the engine casings. Bonus.

But again, who really cares where the parts were made as long as they work? Yet I love that I know this because I was stupid enough to take the bike apart myself and have a look around.

Searching and scoring parts

Even though the scooter isn't missing much, it has many parts that have to be replaced. For starters, the seat cover is a bootleg. It sits right on the springs and has no padding. I'll also need cables, floor rails and plastic, leg sheild rubber, emblems as the originals are past saving, and orange stripes.

I find everything I need for the bike on the internet in a matter of hours. The stuff is shipped to me in Dallas from India, Wales, England, California and New Jersey. Just about everything I need gets here in three weeks. Since SIL produced more GP 150 and 200s than were ever made in Milan, and SIL is still a working factory, parts for these bikes are really easy to find.

For authenticity's sake, I even find a 1972 Texas motorcycle license plate to put on as a finishing touch when the paint and body work is finished.

Painting the Princess

I love original paint bikes --- especially if the paint is beat up. To me, that means the scooter has been ridden and enjoyed. I would have loved for my bike to have paint worth saving. But it didn't --- no amount of polishing would bring the thin Indian enamel back to life. It had been sanded and primed so well, I couldn't even tell what the original color was from an external examination.

I started taking the bike apart and it became apparent the bike was originally black --- a fairly unusual Indian GP color as most were orange or blue. After doing some research, I found pictures of how the bike should look --- it should have orange stripes. A guy on the Lambretta USA Club website ran down this photo of a 1978 black SIL Lambretta. This is what I'm shooting for.

The goal is to make the bike look as good as possible without going overboard. In fact, I'd rather it be imperfect when I get through with it. Perfect bikes are no fun to ride anyway. I don't want to worry about dings, dirt, and the inevitable disaster of having a panel fly off and hit the pavement when I'm doing 40 m.p.h. (which has happened once on this bike already). Imperfections give a bike character and street cred. At least that's what I think.

My goal is to have a shiny paint job that looks good enough from far away, but I'm comfortable enough to let the paint get beat up from normal wear and tear. My hope is that years from now, the casual scooter dork will look at the paint and wonder if it's original because of the wear.

Of course it's more likely that the casual scooter dork will ask, "Uh, so you painted this bike yourself, didn't you?"

Yeah, I did. What of it?

It Arrives

The bike is located in in northwest Alabama, where it apparently has been forever. The guy who had it had bought it off another guy who collected old cars in his front yard and used it to travel around his property. I was going to drive up and make a mini-vacation out of it, but a scooter buddy was heading that way with a truck to pick up an old Vespa in a city not far from where the Lambretta was. For gas money, he brought it back to Dallas for me. I was real happy when it got here.

The body was straight, the panels were sanded and primed, and there was little rust other than on the surface of the bike.

One of the weird things about the bike is the headset. Unlike most Indian and Italian GPs, it does not have a square headlight. It's got a round LI series headset. I'm told that American import Indian GPs were made this way to meet 70's DOT regulations. The bikes are apparently favored by racers in the UK because they have a lower set handle bars than Euro and Indian GPs.

My buddy Anthony and I cleaned the carb, replaced a seal and the bike started on the second kick! Even better, the lights worked! I can hear the bearings when it runs, but it runs. It has a lawn mover gas tank and no petcock, but the tank is clean. I'm OK with that for now. I can replace the tank later.

I ride the bike to work for a couple of weeks to make sure it's reliable. Other than a carb issue --- it only runs right while on choke I figure I can sort that out later --- it proves to be a solid runner.

I ponder whether I should paint the bike. That's going to cost money --- cash that might be better spent keeping the bike running right.

A professional paint job on the bike would set me back $1,200 --- about what the bike is worth. Not doing that.

A rattle can job would set me back, what, 40 bucks? I've seen really good rattle can jobs on my friends bikes. But that choice has its issues too. You have to be really careful with rattle can paint --- spill gas on it and it bubbles up. And rattle can paint doesn't age well. Maybe.

And I can always paint it myself with a sprayer. That'll cost me about $200 in supplies. And it could take a weekend to get it done, or it could take months. The paint might look great, or it might look awful. Get it right and I'll have a durable paint job that will stand up to regular scooter use and abuse. It's a roll of the dice. I'm a gambling man by nature, so I step up the craps table. Click, click, click. Let's paint this beast!

What? I bought another Lambretta?

Two things people in the vintage scooter world tell you never to do: 1. Buy a vintage bike off the internet and; 2. Buy a vintage bike off Ebay.

I broke both those rules when I saw this 1972 Scooters India Limited Lambretta GP 150 on Ebay. The ad was fairly specific --- bike ran the year before but not well and it was supposedly a '72 imported to the U.S., Indian Lambretta. The kickstart had been welded to the shaft --- a disclosure that signaled to me that the seller was honest about the bike and its condition. I'd rather buy a bike like that sight unseen than one from a seller who is obviously trying to puff up a piece of junk.

It looked like shit in the photos but was all there. The bid was at $640 and there were few bids on the bike. With one hour left, I thought, eh, it's not that far away. If the engine is wasted, I can always run down a faster GP200 motor and plug it in. And if I win it, I don't mind driving nine hours to get it.

I've bought a marginally running Lambretta before and I know that, minimum, it could cost me as much as $900 to make the bike a reliable runner.

I do all of the required mental math before I bid $650. That's all it took. The bike is mine.

Oh crap. What do I do now?