You know it’s going to be an interesting year when you start it with a bottom end rebuilt of a Vespa P200 engine.

I put a P200 engine (from ASC in Texas) in the Stella and it’s been pretty fine until about a month ago. It had about 800 miles on it when it started to kick me out of 3rd gear at high revs.

That generally means new cruciform (a small $20 cross that, when it goes, costs hundreds of dollars in labor to replace). I did what I shouldn’t done and basically ignored it, staying in low revs and short shifting into 4th. This avoided the problem and assured me that it wouldn’t get worse. But, as time went on, it got a little worse and then a lot worse, kicking me out of 3rd pretty much any time it wanted to, even in low revs. Sometimes it would kick me out of 4th too (I can’t get high revs in 4th since I can only get up to 50ish on city streets).

Here’s a fun explanation on how the gearing in a Vespa works. It’s a “constant mesh” system and very simple.

On my way home from work the other day, I pretty much had no 3rd gear.

Yesterday, my day off from work and decided to see if it could be the gear adjustment. I readjusted the gears via the selector box and no real difference aside from slightly tighter shifting. However, as I was pulling into my garage, the clutch went. Something made a popping sound and suddenly the clutch lever was very easy to pull and wasn’t engaging/disengaging (my first thought was a busted cable, but it’s fine).

I’ve rebuilt a clutch before, so if it’s that, then no problem at all (aside from not being able to find my clutch nut tool). But could a crapped out clutch cause the initial problem? Or am I looking at dropping the engine and digging out the cruciform, etc.? Well, none of these things, actually.

Well, upon further research, I got my answers.

Apparently there are 2 different EFL selector boxes (the mechanism which moves the cruciform from on gear to the next) with the same part number, and I got the wrong one. The wrong one will move the cruciform into slightly the wrong position. In this case, it’s moving it to just slightly not into 3rd gear, which is why it was kicking it out.

Due to this little issue, I will probably end up needing:
1) New selector box – specifically the FA Italia one.
2) New selector rod – because it’s probably stripped due to the bad selector box
3) New cruciform – because it was probably trashed due to the bad selector box
4) New 3rd gear – because it was probably trashed due to the bad selector box
5) New 4th gear (maybe) – because it was possibly trashed due to the bad selector box
6) New clutch(??) – I’m assuming this clutch issue is related, but I don’t know for sure. Might just need a rebuilt, which will be $75ish cheaper

Due to financial constraints, I’ll be doing all of the work myself and probably spreading it out over a couple of months (to save up the dough). Huzzah! And after a couple of hundred bucks in parts, it should be ok again.

I’ve contacted ASC (American Scooter Center), who built the engine for me and asked them what they could do here. I don’t expect them to do much because it’s been so long, but even a discount on the parts would be awesome.

This is what I’ll need to do today. It doesn’t seem to be too difficult, but I’ve never done it before.

Pictures and descriptions of the fun will flow! Until then, looks like it’s just me and Ruby for the ride to work. I’ve not ridden the red scooter since September.