Vespa LX 150 custom. A three stage mod story - Part II - 2022-2023 - by VM Design and Tuning

( work in progress, pics to follow soon)

As I said before, this story is  more than a two parts one. There will be a part three too, but it will probably come next winter... part two of the project is already  late for reasons independent of me, and I can hardly wait to get in the saddle as the riding season is already on.

For those of you that have already read the first part, you probably realise that even though mechanically she was almost perfect ("almost" being the very accurate word here), I was not really content with the visual look of my beloved LX, even though it had gone through a lot of improvement compared to what it looked like when I got her. 

So here comes part two. 

Last fall, after the season ended,  fueled by the fact that she had some minor defects that needed fixing anyway (chromed paint of the Sitoplus plastic heatshield started to peel off, the saddle lock was broken and replacing it required surgery on the saddle and removing the saddle cover, plus a lot of other minor kinks), not to mention the major defects that I already listed in the first part, the badly repaired neck frame structure and the lousy paintjob it got after the crash, I decided that the time had come to put her through a complete exterior restoration along with another set of visual and technical mods.

So it was time to start stripping her off, this time to the bare bone, until there was nothing left, except the engine and the steering column.

Frame:

First off I started with the frame. It took me a considerable amount of effort to find a suitable donor. After a long search I found a 50cc LX that the owner was selling for parts (engine was totalled). The 150 and the 50 share the same frame so it was ok on that part, however it was not the best choice as the outer metal sheets were badly rusted especially on the underbody, but it was the only one I got. So I decided that, instead of switching the entire frame, to go for a rebuild, taking the inner structural frame from the 50cc and stripping the outer panels, that I would later weld in, from my own. All said and done,  this would prove to be the most challenging (and time consuming) operation I ever had to make. This is actually the only part that is still not complete, and is currently underway, as all the parts have to be dissasembled,  sandblasted ( probably again the guys at sablez.ro, they actually did all the sandblasting and powdercoating on all the parts of my scooters) and then welded back together with special anti-rust welding,  then the body will get primed and painted back.  This part is still in progress.  

Paintjob:

Now that the body was finally over (as a project), I wanted to get proactive, so it was time to get started on the paintjob at least on the rest of the parts, to get them finished and ready for assembly when the body would be done. 

After thorough consideration I decided to drop the classic Vespa look, with lots of chromed trims, mirrors  and stuff, especially since I was not a huge fan of the factory "metallic silver" color she had, especially when combined with the chromed trims, and go for a more sporty look that would match the paintjob I was going to give her.

Now, since the local regulations require that the scooter has to have the color inscribed in the registration papers and any change in color would have required a re-issue of all the registration papers, I decided to skip the initial thought of making it orange with black, as all the bureaucracy involved promised to be a nasty headache. 

But, as the regulatory authority had inscribed in the papers the original silver color as just "grey", I decided to go with grey, just a very different tone of grey than the original. 

I had seen a few years ago, in a magazine, a version of the LX, called Black Sport Edition, in a color called "grigio opaco", aka matte grey, and it looked like the one below.

 

While decent for what I had in mind, it did not satisfy me completely, as I was envisioning something closer to the blacked out  Vespa GTS HPE that the californians from Scooterwest have on their website (yea, I know, they just sell the trims, the color is Grey Materia from two years ago or so).

So, with these two in mind I got to work and I got through a lot of different shades of grey (not 50, but close).

In the end,  just when I had finally decided it would be a non-metallic Nardo Grey (pretty standard on Audi RS, BMW M and so on) the paintjob guy came with a slightly different idea. 

The BMW M Sport Brooklyn Grey metallic. (The BMW's in the pics below are just as a sampler, wasn't able to find a sample to show the color, especially side by side with Nardo. As far as I know the images are not copyrighted, feel free to let me know if they are and I will remove them).

I liked it, as it was very close on first look to Nardo Grey.

 Just with a bit of a twist, a bit more blueish than Nardo and metallic with a bit of a pearl to it, whereas Nardo is flat non-metallic. The metallic flake is very nice looking and distinguishing it from the Nardo, especially in full sunlight.

To go with it, I took another length, that even Vespa had not on their Black Sport (you'll notice the silver variator cap) or Scooterwest on the GTS trims (too bad they did not exchange the brakes handles and the logo stickers with black ones). I decided everything elso would be black or painted black, apart from the indicators and the headlight.

I decided to keep them transparent and not go smoked as I wanted them as visible as possible, one thing I learned in these last few years is that the more visible and audible you are on the street (within certain legal limits, sort of), the more you increase your chance of survival,  in a country that's not as accustomed to motorcycles and scooters as Spain, Italy or some other more civilised countries and where most car drivers claim "they did not see you", as it happened more than once to some of my friends.   The only compromise I did, was to exchange the red tail light to a smoked one.

And as the acoustic part was solved, partly by the sport exhaust and partly by the Nautilus horn, being highly visible was next on the list. But more on that, later.

Mods

Comfort/Accesories/Aesthetics/Visual:    

• Glovebox

I can't start the mods chapter without saying I always found the original LX glove box a bit of a pain in the ass. 

In theory it's pretty straightforward, you push the key knob in and you got a storage space for gloves (as the name suggests), registration license and other small items. In practice, the door design is faulty imho, as everything has a tendency to fall off on the sides as soon as you open the door (same goes for almost all Vespas). 

To adress this, at some point, there was a US based company called Caribou Cases (that mostly makes motorcycle hard cases) that supplied what they called a glovebox liner for the LX and GTS, essentially a mesh pouch double taped to the glovebox, that held items inside the glovebox from falling off. Unfortunately at some point they stopped producing them, and the chinese, who are usually quick at reproducing such items, didn't pick this one up.
I had some local shop make me one, two years ago, just did not have time to install it in part one, not to mention I was not fully satisfied with the look and felt like a little mod here was the right thing to do. ( I had them both painted though, just in case)
The Vespa S (Sport) was the twin sister of the LX and LXV and shared most of their external components, except for the saddle, headlight, speedometer and most of all, the glovebox. The S had a very thin glovebox, with small, open pockets, and a central luggage hook similar to the one on the GTS. Much, much more useful (for me at least), so I decided to replace the LX glovebox with the S one, as the open pockets on the S are more useful to put inside some quick items like wallet, keys or a pair of glasses/sunglasses, that you are taking with you when you park, while all the rest, that has to stay with the scooter and be protected, would get inside the main compartment, under seat, especially since that one is too small for a helmet, for my helmet anyway.    

• Horn Cover

The original horn cover was the original, round bottom, one piece unit of the early versions of the LX, and I can't honestly say I liked the looks of it. So it got replaced by a new horn cover with the 2012-on facelift look and a removable black inlay with LED parking lights.  

• Seat
The original seat cover was in pretty rough shape after 17 years. To add to that, it needed a new opening cable (the original had broken off), which unfortunately could only be replaced if the seat was torn apart, and the seat cover was just in no condition to resist a reinstall as it had started to tear at the bottom edge not to mention the sewing was showing a lot of wear. So a new, custom seat cover was done by Motovis custom seats and while at it, they also changed my seat lock cable. Again, as in Honda's case, awesome job, done by outstanding professionals in a very short amount of time. I did not want to modify it radically (these guys can do heavy modding of saddles, so I could have transformed it into a one seater or two separate seats like on the lXV without much trouble, or even a lowered version like the Corbin saddle), the stock saddle was good for me, so I only went for a tuck and roll style cover, didn't even have it embroidered with a logo, like on the Honda, although I admit I kinda feel sorry not to.

• Dashboard - One final mod, that is actually still in the project stage

As I said I wanted it to be perfect, so having the scooter grey with all black trims... and a beige/silver dash..., was far from perfect. A black dash was the way to go, especially since I had seen one in a Pinterest photo.

So I went scouting again. I am currently investigating two possibilities, hopefully one of these days I will get the answers I am waiting for and one will turn as a winner, so I will be able to reveal all about it. You will get  a full update once it's done, don't want to get hopes up for anyone till it's done.

Rest of the accessories/visual mods I will simply list, as follows.

• Jailbreak Customs under seat helmet hook

• Rizoma-like luggage hook (chinese replica, couldn't convince myself to pay 100 EUR for the original)

• Rizoma 4D aspheric mirrors on rizoma mount adapters (these are originals though, I like a mirror that doesn't shake or rattle on the road, not to mention the quality of these babies is insane)

• Spirit Beast oblique mirror adapters for ball mounts  

• Ram Mounts phone mount

• Spirit Beast GoPro mount

• SIP Pordoi titanium grey, aluminum oil dipstick

• SIP Pordoi titanium grey, aluminum gear oil dipstick

• SIP Pordoi titanium grey, aluminum front wheel hubnut cover

• Crimaz black suspension arm cover with disk brake cooling hood

• Variator cover - sandblasted and powdercoated black 

• Kickstarter pedal - sandblasted and powdercoated black

• Wheels - sandblasted and powdercoated black

• Sitoplus heatshield - sanded and painted black

• Variator cover cap - sanded and painted black (I wasn't able to find a decent black one with a Vespa logo, there is one but only for the late model LX3V that shares the same variator cover with the Sprint/Primavera and it's smaller than mine, I could have chosen the  Zelioni or the SIP Pordoi aluminum versions but they did not appeal to me)

• DMP black sport brake handles instead of the original Vespa ones 

• Moto Nostra black left & right leg shield beadings instead of the original chromed Vespa ones

• Moto Nostra black GTS-style rear rack with grab handle instead of the similar chromed one

• Vespa black cover for rear rack/grab handle instead of the chrome one 

• SIP black foldable passenger foot pegs instead of the aluminum ones

• SIP black headlight rim

• Under seat cargo trunk liner with registration papers pocket 

• Black Vespa logo emblems

• Black horn cover emblem with custom design

Electrical:
• New flasher circuit with a Motogadget "m.flash" led indicator relay to replace the in-CDI existing one that did not handle led bulbs correctly. This is still in the project phase.

• Killswitch button instead of the masking cap, custom wired as hazard light switch

• SIP smoked Mk II led rear light with black trim instead of the similar red/chrome one 

• New look, extended horn button

• Vendy front dual mode led indicator bulbs/white DRL's,  in the original indicator light housings

• Vendy rear dual mode led indicator bulbs/red DRL's, that I will probably wire as extra brake lights, as I did on the Honda, in the original indicator light housings

Tyres:

• As I took the tyres off the wheels in order to paint the wheels I noticed that one of them had been chipped on the sealing edge (probably when installed) and a new reinstall was not possible. Combined with  the fact they were already decently used up and not in perfect shape, made me decide to replace them. And even though I had no problems with the Michelin City Grip 2's, I always liked better the Italian counterpart, so I decided to switch them to Pirelli Angel Scooters. To complement that, I installed Sifam black  aluminum bent valves and custom Vespa grey caps. 

More photos:

 * with many, many thanks to:
• Fabio Todircan whose invaluable help was and is essential in putting this baby back together. 

• George, Ionut, Nae and Florin from Evas Motor Cars who always got their hands dirty to get me out of any mechanical hiccup I got into.

• Nicu Barbu who did an amazing paintjob so far.
• the nice people at sablez.ro
• the amazing people at Motovis

To be continued... aka what's left to be done in part three

• Malossi 187cc racing cilinder/piston  

• new Keihin CVK carb (with modified jets to accomodate the larger cilinder ?)

• Malossi or Polini final transmission, probably  Polini

• Polini front, dual piston caliper for even more braking power, especially with the power/speed increase given by the larger cilinder and final trans