Scooterotica

And he has been offered £2350 as a buy it now

Not bad for a scoot with a blown engine.
If he doesn't take that, I don't think he will get a better offer.

agreed, shame its on there at all but I guess needs must :-/

I think Ebay is a knee jerk reaction Tony...........

You say the bike owes you around £2700- the bids are around the £800 mark at present and theres a guy from Essex way that wants to give you £2300 now. Assuming he does what he says, thats still going to leave you £500 or so behind. Whats a new piston? Someone said c£100. That being so, still £400 down then.

Can't you just leave it in the garage till you can buy the piston? Or is your flirtation with Lambrettas that badly tainted at this early stage?

Having said that, I could have done exactly the same as you intend to do now, way back in 1968 when i had my first (of many!!) crisis with my first Lambretta.

Had I done so, my life would be totally different now,- sounds a cliche, but Lambrettas are a part of my life and have been for nearly 50 years- they will be till the date I die.

Just stating whay I feel- you probably will regret jacking it all in, and at the back of your mind, there will always be the "what if I hadn't" scenario.

Think on it

Chris

Dear Tino....

Hi guys LOL

what started as a simple request for help went proper mad,8 pages LOL

I was always accepting that I would lose some money, that's just life.

for me its just been real hard, sold another ride of mine cheap to get the cash to do this, tried to not cut corners with the engine, looked after it and then the piston went after 377 miles, just gut wrenching to be honest, looks lie it was purely my fault, I accept that, certainly learnt from it

the Guy in Southend seems genuine, but I had all that sort of interest in the past with ebay and other bikes etc.

Im currently sorting out my garage and trying to work out what parts I really don't need maybe sell them first LOL

listing it is/was a backup plan. gives me a week to decide and try to sort things

its always a pain when things go wrong, but I seem to have had so much recently that this just topped it all off

back of my mind is that if its sold, the next sunny day, I will regret it, and probably never be able to afford another one.

you guys make me smile and have helped me keep some sort of sanity recently, for that I thank you.

I do keep thinking about what my dear old mate Vic would have been saying right now if he was still here, probably calling me a right tart and telling me to just sort it out.

I have already had crank out, cleaned it all up, blasted with air and lubed it all up etc.

oooooh just realised I got a 28 phbh carb sat in the car,thats got to be worth a couple of quid



edit

been out and looked at it while seeing what crap I can find to put on ebay LOL, it looks so sad just sat there. perhaps I been stupid and should sell anything that comes to hand, wait till I get enough money, get her back to life and enjoy her again.

thanks Chris and everyone else

yes I think I just had such a crap start with Lambrettas that I have possibly over reacted and risk cutting off my nose to spite my face. I waited a long time and thought long and hard about a Lambretta, very different to the normal rides I had and built for the last 20 years, custom chops, trikes, lowriders etc. Im kind of a reverse Russ Mitchell.

never blown up or broken down in all them years, rode some real crocks and no problems, always got home at very worst case. but despite trying to do it all properly this happened.

Do whatever is right for you. If flogging it is the right move and you can get decent money for it, then flog it! It would be better to flog this and possibly buy a cheap run-about to tinker with, rather than have a bike sitting about in bits and gathering dust, waiting for the day that it might be sorted. Let's face it, if you buy the piston + gaskets, etc. and don't resolve an issue, then you could be holing another piston in the next 400 miles and in the same dilema again!

I personally don't think that this is a 'going on reserve' issue as I always run on ON and use reserve as it was intended. As such I go onto reserve every time I use a tank of petrol and not once in decades of use on X number of Lambrettas, with X number of engine configurations (iron or alloy) can I put a seizure or holed piston down to going onto reserve. Yes, I've seized motors and I've stripped motors to find evidence of pinking/pitting but I have never holed a piston... but I know that I would have if jetting and ignition timing was not suitable for the compression and setup that I was running. As such, I think that you still have issues to resolve with your motor... issues that just fitting another expensive piston will not fix.

Vic... I could do with him sorting me out a few more keys A smile for Vic, up there.

Do what is right for you.

Adam

ill just say this ... a piston is nothing .. try a rod through yer casing and the third blown top end to boot

I wont lie .. at that point 1990 .. I f@@ked scooters off for good few years I can tell you

had quite a few times when you just think feck it,most recently ,at the beginning of the year a twisted crank.To be honest if a Lambretta was a girlfriend you'd have kicked her into touch years ago,high maintenance,demanding,expensive etc.But the fun does eventually outweigh all that,I think as others have said you may just need to step back for a while, leave it a month or so,get the funds together,bit of fettlin,timing ,jets,run it on reserve ,whatever and I think you may just start liking it again,where as the moment you probably feel like the picture below.

haha that must have tested you

had a good evening, sold the spare carb I had and some other odds and sods, the kind of things I was keeping as they might come in handy one day.

but my need is great.

looks like I will be in a position to order new piston and gaskets on Monday or Tuesday

sometimes life gets me down, spend so much time sat alone in front of the TV that its easy to just lose track of things in life and worry about things that really aren't that important.

Good, here's hoping that you'll keep it and get it sorted. I have little doubt that info shared on here can help you to resolve any issues and avoid this happening again.

Good lick with it.

Adam