Down for the count - injured

I am healing from a severe herniated disc at C6. My right arm was in a pain I can not describe. I was out of work for almost 2 weeks and could not get out of bed. This happened about 1.5 months ago. It's serious. It has the possibility of ending my riding career permanently.

Today was my second round of cortisone. The Sunday before last I reached for Piper, who ducked, and I over extended myself. My neck hurt through Wednesday. but seemed to heal. I could not lay any way other than on my back, but have been back to normal since last Wednesday. Doctor said that is a promising sign, but he also said if this cortisone shot does not bring me to 100% recovery we need to discuss surgery. It should be noted he suspect this will work and I will recover without surgery. The last shot brought me back to 65-70% and peaked out. So I just need another push for the last 30%. Being vigilantly careful.

What I believe happened is . . . around December 20th I bought a new helmet. The shop guy fitted it for me. He grabbed the helmet from the front and told me to keep my head straight. He then applied pressure to turn it. I used a lot of neck strength to keep my head straight. For a solid week I ate Ibprofin like candy because my neck hurt a lot. I could not look over my shoulder. Then I healed, I thought. For about two weeks at night my right arm hurt a lot. Then the bomb dropped and the disc popped. I cried as my wife helped me get dress for work and left work early and reported to urgent care. The pain is unreal. The pain meds suck - clouded my existence - very very strong stuff.

Keep me in your prayers. I have two scooters to restore and one wanting to be ridden now.

New to me parts cleaner

I just received a Harbor Freight Tools parts cleaner for free for Justin M. Thanks Justin.

I asked my friend, Tom G., what solution he uses and he responded:

For parts washing, I use the solvent based cleaners supplied by McMaster Carr:

Solvent-Based Solutions— These solutions remove grease, motor oil, cutting oil, water-soluble oil, soft gummy deposits, and buffing and lapping compounds from metal, plastic, and painted surfaces. They have a mild odor and contain no chlorinated solvents. These products are compliant under all state VOC rules in effect on January 1, 2011, except in California. Caution: Do not heat. Use only at room temperature. Solvent-plus-lanolin formula contains lanolin to reduce skin irritation and chapping. Leaves a corrosion-resistant film on parts. Nitrile gloves should be worn for prolonged use. Flash point is 105° F. High-flash-point lanolin formula is for when local regulations require a higher flash point. It has a flash point of 141° F. Solvent-Based Solutions Size Each Solvent-Plus-Lanolin Formula 5 gal. 3229K1 $95.22 50 gal. 3229K3 859.66 High-Flash-Point Formula 5 gal. 3457K11 $91.92 50 gal. 3457K23 812.63 Unfortunately, I live in California so that will not work for me. I asked Mike A., who is local to Calif. and he suggested:

"Solvent, don't use the harbor freight junk. Call around to machine shops and see what they use. They probably have a service that changes out their tanks for them but some times they have extra on the shelf and might be willing to give or sell you some. Keep in mind good solvent is expensive. Easily over $5 per gal. Also it will evaporate so keep it closed up. The trick to making solvent last is to only use it for finish cleaning, so no greasy cases!"

My uncle has restored cars for decades and for the longest time has run kerosene through his parts washer and its pump. There are many considerations that need to take place before acting on this and then some serious planning, due to the explosive nature of kerosene and as Mike A. said "Just be sure to use gloves as the benzine in the kerosene has a cumulative affect and can cause problems later on tumors etc.".

At this point I will try Freecycle and my local machine shops.

New Tools

I needed the air palm nailer that Tom G. recommended I buy. While at Harbor Freight I also picked up some other tools I knew I would need in the future. Note that Harbor Freight Tools are not quality tools and are not built to last, but rather if you have a few jobs that will require a limited amount of use over the years you'll be fine and won't beat the price. Non-mechanical tools will work out just fine for you in the long-run as well with more regular use. Copper brushes
for cleaning parts is a wise investment. The air gun impact wrench will be used ONLy for loosing super tight screws during disassembly.

I did see a $20 blue colored mini air palm nailer to use for riveting and I think that would be a smarter choice. It is easier to hold and maybe control. Something to think about.

Fiberglass Fender Repair

My original fender was in need of some work. When I bought it I thought I can repair this easy. I had repaired surf board in college working with Sanding Resin glass and cloth. My work was good and clean, but after speaking to my parent's neighbor Jack, who was a professional with glass and epoxy, and learned what was needed to properly repair this fender I knew it was beyond what I preferred to tackle.

Luckily, Jack offered to take it on. He uses the West System Epoxy. He is a glider instructor and built his own glider. Aircraft folks use this system and he referred to it as aircraft epoxy.

He told me it something like 100 times stronger than fiberglass. Hell the Lammy fender is referred to as "chopper" work in the fiberglass community. It is cheap and fast to produce many many fenders. Jack had to cut back and rebuild the area around the crack by hand. It looks great!

The fender overall was in fair shape.

There were noticeable chips and even stress cracks.

There were chips and the mounting holes had cracked and became too large for the hardware.

I will dry fit the bike after body work and before paint and then line these holes up and re-drill them.

The nose was misshaped a hair and Jack rebuild that as well.

Jack said he had to "feather" (this he said is the lay-man's term. I forgot the glass worker term for it) to build layers for maximum strength.

He reinforced all areas that would be stressed by a vibrating Lambretta.

It feels so good to know the job was done right.

Jack found stress cracks and explained that they would only get worse, so he cut back the source and rebuilt it and reinforced it. It will no longer stress crack.

I am amazed at his precision and accuracy. He told me the entire fender took him two hours.

Looking at it before one last time shows it was decent, but now the fender is something I will not have to worry about thanks to Jack.


Jack is "retired" he says and "not for hire". He is eighty years old. He said he'd do my fender at costs, which was $12.00 (yes, twelve dollars).

Above is a soap box derby car Jack build from scratch with epoxy. Even the steering column and frame he welded. The only thing he bought was the tires.

These old school fabricators are hard to come by now and I hope to get some garage time with Jack and learn at least a little.

For $12.00, a nice bottle of wine, and a framed picture of his soap box derby car winning a race I have an original fiberglass front fender ready to go to the body shop, who will sand it down and fill it up (little to none will be required) where necessary, prime and paint.

In early 2012 I will work with Jack and my dad to learn how to work with the epoxy and repair my dad's Sun Fish sail boat. After that experience I should be confident working with the epoxy and have the ability to make repairs to fenders and such -- of course not as good as Jack did.

Servetta Jet200 frame $200 from Craiglist

I just bought the following for my mentor Mike in So. Cal. who has a set of Jet200 cases that need a frame.

My commission for picking up the tire is the spare tire holder -- actually I asked Mike if he was married to it and he gave it to me. Now I need to determine if it is considered period correct for my restoration.
I think he paid a fair price for what he bought.

Clutch materials

Along with my Christmas Gift exhaust pipe I received Surflex clutch corks and the up-rated springs. The philosophy of both my mentor Mike A. and Peter L., Mods & Rockers Vapor Blasting, is it is better to build up the lower end in the chance that I upgrade the top-end at a later date. It will save me time and money this way . . . not to mention up-rated springs will run just fine in my stock bike I have been told.

Big Bore Exhaust

When I first bought the bike I planned to use a DeanSpeed 190 along with a GP Big Bore pipe. The scoot had no pipe nor carb so I figured if I was going to buy these items anyways I might as well mildly tune it for enjoyable riding. Seeing as I slow to restore, due to cash and time, advances have been made in the top-end options and those advances are beyond my wallet at this time, so I plan to run my bike much closer to stock. It will be treated as a rider as opposed to a museum relic.With that said, I opted to put a budget-friendly Big Bore pipe on it. I was very close to buying the recently-released-again Tutto pipe and honoring the stock TV for a truer purer restore. But at $230 plus for the Tutto and $130 for the AF Rayspeed/KBA/Uni and a mild power adjustment I opted for the Uni. I'd like this bike to leave my garage a couple days per week if possible.

Thanks for the birthday gift mom and dad.