Vespa Bodywork

The signs of a rodent infestation aren’t easy to see until it’s too late: In my case they chewed through the air bellow and gained access to the large area under the gas tank, making nests and bathrooming in the same place. This is where the design flaw amplifies the the problem. A body stiffener is spot welded to the sides of the frame, and the urine and droppings can drip into the space between the welds. Over time the corrosive urine rots out the metal:

There’s only one way to fix this properly- cut out all of the rotted metal until you get to a rust free area. For some scooters this stops above the floorboard; for others the entire floor is rotted and all new metal has to be purchased. The pieces are reproduced and can be bought at places like Scooter Center or SIP in Germany (links). Or you can make your own.

In my case I my rot stopped just above the floorboards, so I was able to cut out relatively flat pieces of metal and not get too far into the curves. Here’s the extent of the cutting required:

I fabricated replacement pieces and welded them in place:

After that I went to my paint supplier and had them custom mix a one part aerosol can of paint. Even though I had the code they felt it was better to take a picture of a clean part and mix based on the color analysis.

I painted as follows:

• 2 coats epoxy primer
• plastic filler
• 1 coat etch primer
• 3 coats high build primer with sanding in between each coat
• 2 coats of finish paint.

I let that dry for a week,, then buffed the paint with compound to get back to the same gloss level as the rest of the paint. I’m glad I could do this work myself. It would not have been cheap if I sent it out, assuming I could even find someone to take on this kind of work.