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2020 has been a slightly unusual year, COVID has kind of messed things up. We’ve had hardly any events, no National rallies, no meaningful places to ride to and as a result haven’t had to spend time fixing things.

 

The good news is that the extra time at home and the money we’ve saved by not going away all the time has meant we’ve had more time and cash on our hands to spend on scooter projects. I bought this Lambretta cutdown (above) during the first lockdown after seeing it advertised on Facebook (minus an engine). It was delivered by courier and to be honest, didn’t look like much of a scooter, that’s the thing about cutdowns, there’s not much to them. Even so, it did have most of the right parts, including a front disc brake, BGM front shocks, R1 rear and a long-range tank. 

 

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Still Sick

 

Still Sick is quite an apt name for a scooter in 2020 so I left the signwriting on the legshields. I’d been fancying a 1980s style cutdown for a while and this one came up at just the right time. I already had a spare 200 engine so that was rebuilt by Rob at Simply Retro. The plan was to keep the engine fairly standard so we used a Challenger Equipe tuned stage 4 top end, 25mm Dell’Orto and a Micron exhaust I picked up for £100. 

 

cutdown

 

Paint it black

 

Whilst the engine was being sorted I took a few bits and bobs off to have powder-coated. The rims, hubs, rear shock, cowlings and a few other parts were done in gloss black to get rid of the yucky green. I’ve also swapped the homemade rearsets for a set of Keith Newman’s from K2 Custom Classics and changed the standard gear linkages for JPP Lambretta ones. Plus I put one of our SLUK Racing front mudguards on.

 

More new parts?

 

That’s it for the time being but over winter we plan to make a front and rear hugger and hopefully a set of prettier looking drops.

 

iggy px

 

PX 210 street racer

 

The second lockdown project is to sort the engine out on my street racer PX 210. This scooter looks great (thanks to the paintwork by Jubilee Scooters) and the Ryan Saxelby tuned engine is a beast but it’s around 16 years old and has been giving me grief for a while. It’s become a running joke (or not running as the case may be) amongst my riding friends. My original plan was to rebuild a Malossi top end using new Pinasco or Malossi casings but that changed when the Pinasco 251 was released.

 

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Duecentocinquantuno

 

A few weeks ago I got most of the parts together, including new casings, top end, crank, clutch, ignition, carb, reedvalve and an exhaust. The casings went away to be powder coated by Midas Touch just before the second lockdown. I’ve got them back now and the black edition 251cc ‘duecentocinqantuno’ engine will be built by Al at Diablo Moto.

 

Video build


We’re going to show this build, warts and all! We’ll video the build process, including dyno/setting up and road testing.

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The Brogue Trader SST 265

 

Our third project is one that you may remember from a couple of years ago, it’s the Brogue Trader Casa SSR 265. It’s long overdue, almost three years in the making, thanks to a few hiccups along the way but it is actually finished.

 

 

Built by Rimini Lambretta Centre this scooter has a few nifty touches and is finally on the way back to England before Christmas.

 

 

We’ll do a full feature on it in the New Year…

 

 

Show us your lockdown/winter projects

 

I’m sure plenty of SLUK readers will have been busy and we’d like to see what you’ve been doing. Email a photo of your build with a few details and we’ll add them to the bottom of this page. You can send them to: editorial@scooterlab.uk

Sorry if you’d already uploaded a photo

 

If you’d already uploaded a photo of your project can you send it again please? We had some behind the scenes gremlins today and this post has been re-written again and the photo uploader has had to be disabled. Grrrr, stupid computers.

 

Thanks

Iggy

SLUK readers rides

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‘Gulp’ Racer
 
Here are a few pictures of my lockdown project. Originally a Proddy class RB20, now rebuilt with an SS200 for the Evo class, god loves a trier!!
 
Jer Crew
 
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Here is a picture of my Spanish Series 2. I bought this running on 6v 4 months ago, an unregistered standard scooter. It has had a complete makeover consisting of a Ts1 engine built from scratch from Jerome at Readspeed. Upgraded suspension, disc brake, SIP rims, mid-range tank, absolute full nut and bolt rebuild, sign-written the list goes on etc… Fantastic rat scooter absolutely love it.

 
Regards Andy
 
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Framebreather SST265

 

I bought a Lambretta S1 Framebreather that looked ok in the photos, made the classic mistake of not going to see it first (will I ever learn?) it was not as good as I had thought it was. So I stripped it down & sold most of the parts & the engine, leaving me with the frame, side panels, forks & some tubeless rims.

 

I then sourced decent parts, had the frame checked in a jig & the bodywork beaten into shape & took it up to Dave Dickinson for the paint, I have got a full SST265 Casa Performance engine built by Micky & the team at RLC, a set of PM Tuning forks & double-disc & a nice seat from Streamline Seats & a few other nice bits to go on it. Hopefully, it will all come together into a finished scooter by Jan/Feb next year (probably before we will be able to go rallying again).

Cheers, Bugs

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Lydden Hill 230
 
Originally this scooter was the Green Meanie Custom Lambretta which unfortunately got a little bent out of shape after smashing me into the outside wall of a country cottage in Kent & then bouncing off dragging us both into a very hard wooden post.
 
Here it is 3 yrs later due to delays over paintwork but that’s a far too long a story for this post.
 
This scooter has a Casa 230cc engine which is part of a limited run of 50 “Lydden Hill Replicas” (this is number 38). Performance-wise it is fitted with a 35mm Mikuni Carb, Casa Variatronic ignition, AF Cassette Clutch, Andy Francis Race pipe with a Casa Cooler soon to follow. 
 
Other extras include:
 
A SIP GPS Speedo with an intelli converter fitted to convert AC current to DC current to avoid the clock from keep resetting itself, a gold Casa Single front disc brake with Targa front dampers & BGM rear shock, Oiltek long range fuel tank with small toolbox cut out, custom covered seat by local vintage car workshop, various body parts/badges created & gold plated or custom coated by K2 Customs. 
 
I would just like to give a quick thanks to my mate Mick for all his efforts in doing the majority of the building work with a little bit of help from me here & there. 
 
P.S. I look forward to hopefully seeing this on your site.
 
Cheers, Chris 
 
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Back from the 80s Frambreather
 
Morning SLUK and many thanks for doing a brilliant job!
 
I popped my frame breather on the covid lockdown rebuild page, but the pics didn’t upload (Back from the 80s – green and orange S1).
 
Here they are in the event you’d like to post on the page.
 
Have a great day and all the very best from horrible Croydon.
 
Country Frank
 
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BFA 306 lockdown project

 

I got the majority of the work done whilst on a 3 week furlough in April, I’ve just been refining it since. Warren Wilkinson gave it a once over and fitted a new SIP Vape ignition and an MRP carb manifold and

V-Force reed block. Its making 45hp and 31lbft torque on Warren’s dyno.

I’ve had the engine over 2 years the initial build in my old favourite matt black street racer PX frame I was unhappy with. It was unrideable with the drop bars and the 5-litre SS90 tank gave me a 30 mile range. The clutch was ridiculously heavy. My elbows aren’t the best either after 30 years on the tools as a joiner. So this new cutdown has been built to solve all the initial issues. 

 
Piaggio Skipper forks with a short Bitubo shock which drops the front over 2 inches and it’s got a more aerodynamic mudguard, along with a cutdown T5 front spoiler. I’m hoping for it to be less wheelie prone and more stable. Harley Davidson Centre tank and a very sturdy centre bar again to make the frame stiffer and a 12-litre range. Plus I can grip the tank with my knees!
 
Straight PX bars replace the previous drops, with those I had to sit that far forward to keep the front end down that I couldn’t change gear easily. Especially combined with the heavy clutch. I’m now using an easy clutch set up with an MRP extended clutch arm and a Crimaz geared clutch plunger this has made a massive difference.
I’ve also fitted a spare wheel oil or petrol tank to increase usability and a GPS digital speedo. I’ve just a screen to fit now and then it’s complete… for now.
 
Stephen Halstead
 

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