I must be truly insane

So I bought another Vespa yesterday. It is all in parts with no engine, but the price was very good. $250 for the frame, fork, tanks, handle bars, floor rails, electrical parts, etc.

There are other parts I will need to get like an engine, seat, cowls, etc. But it will all wait until I finish the rebuild of Sprint.

Horn Cast Karma

I received a NOS (New Old Stock) today from an Ebay auction I won last week. Having a brand new unpainted horn cast is more than I had hoped for when I started searching for a replacement for the one that had been cut off in the P conversion.

Missing Horn Cast

I had a few people contact me with options. One person had a Super he was parting out, but I never could make one on one contact with him. 

Another person contacted me saying he had a NOS horn cast but was out of town. When he returned, he discovered he had sold/given it to someone a few years ago. That person wanted $100 for the horn cast. 

At this time someone posted a garage sale of misc items which included a horn cast of unknown model. I took a gamble and paid for it, but it turns out it is for a small frame Vespa. 

So I contacted the person who had given away the earlier horn cast and asked him to contact his friend who wanted $100 for confirmation on that horn cast. 

I then was looking on Ebay under a general Vespa search and found the NOS Horn cast there. It was in Denmark and the label confirmed it was the right one. The bid was at about $10 when I bid, so I put in $50 with about 36 hours left in the auction. I became the highest bidder at $11.50. But then I was outbid up to $51. So I then waited until the auction had 20 seconds to go and I put in a bid of $80. I ended up winning the bid at $54 plus $15 shipping. 

NOS Horn Cast

So I got it cheaper than the person wanting to charge $100, though I was willing to pay more if that is what it took to get the right part. If he has said $50, I would of not been looking on Ebay or other sellers in the first place while waiting for responses.

Sometimes karma works in the right direction.

Adjusting the Clutch cable

It took a few days to get the clutch adjusted right. I made the adjustments and it seemed fine in the parking lot, but once I started up in the morning and got on the street, the engagement area was too close to the handle being all the way out. This was a bit awkward for me since I am used to the sweet spot in the middle of the travel of the clutch lever. Finally I got it in the right spot and I am comfortable with using the clutch again.