Scooterotica

ages ago a pal of mine with a vespa had the usual jumping out of gear probs ,and upon stripping it yes for sure his criciform was badly worn out .
now as it happened i didnt have another in stock at the time and so i told him to order one asap.
but cos he needed it back on the road asap for work he asked me why i couldnt just weld up the worn ends and file /dress up after ...well my first thoughts were that its a bodge maybe and so was really reluctant to do it although it was at his request .
interestingly i told him that i had seen it done before ,but usually only on those indonesian restro jobs .
not to be deterred he insisted i had a go at it at his risk.
so i welded and dressed up the ends and re fitted it and it worked .
the reason that i mention it now is cos this was approx 5 year and many miles ago and its still ok unbelievably .
I certainly would not advocate this sort of repair as opposed to a new cruciform ever but just thought that it made an interesting tale .

actually having posted that tale its got me thinking now,cos it worked.
now I know thats absolutly not a cost effective repair on a vespa cruciform unless you have your own welder and the time etc but perhaps its a worthy repair on old italian lambretta gear selectors perhaps ...any one tried it yet given the price of replacement ones that dont often fit or work good anyways lol

when working in an engineering factory, many years ago, i got a Rally cruciform repaired by the engineering dept'. They stick welded the ends and milled them down, probably the same as Sean did. I don't recall it being very successful but it did get it back on the road. There was concern over whether the welded bits would break off and some of the more technical engineers questioned whether the harder cruciform would wear the cogs first as opposed to the cruciform.

interesting ,and like i said ..i was very dubious about doing it also at the time ..but after 5 years and thousands of miles not so sure now lol.mine was mig welded not stick if that makes a difference .
its well known that some replacement cruciforms are made of cheese anyways so perhaps its not such a bad thing to do after all ..
the F.A.R ones seem especially crap ,bit like their hubs etc .

if you had the cruciforms frozen would that help on wear?

sean brady scooters wrote:interesting ,and like i said ..i was very dubious about doing it also at the time ..but after 5 years and thousands of miles not so sure now lol.mine was mig welded not stick if that makes a difference .
its well known that some replacement cruciforms are made of cheese anyways so perhaps its not such a bad thing to do after all ..
the F.A.R ones seem especially crap ,bit like their hubs etc .

Arent the cruciforms supposed to be softer then the gears and layshaft to avoid more expensive parts wearing ?
Notice SIP offer reinforced cruciforms i assume they have been frozen mind arent they 45€ 39 pounds,

Taffys used to repair lammy sliding dogs like this years ago. SIP do an MJ9 extra sooper dooper cruciform, but ive found proper Piaggio to last as long as you need.

its something to think about but like said probably isnt cost effective in most cases.

i`ve never had issue with genuine piaggio in a EFL gearboxes as Goldeneye said - even in my tuned p2 which likes a thrash in 3rd

the older early type gearbox never faired as well even with genuine piaggio (thats why i changed to EFL) - now here it could be cost effective.

Correct in the quality of some of the cruciforms but who knows were "genuine" piaggio parts are coming from now.

Although not genuine - i bought a flywheel side bearing for a px it was advertised, bagged and labelled P&A Italy but was stamped on one side with an NRB code (Indian) - mind no problem with it

there maybe a place for this type of modification - as with the sliding dogs

Bodge, I think not Sean its only a bodge if and when it fails, how many times have we had to fettle, change parts just make them do there intended job and I do also mean expensive new products, I think being a scooterist is code for bodge merchant but I suppose that's part of the satisfaction of getting it to work. But on a serious note I remember on the early p2s we
were changing cruciforms for almost something to do ( because we could) but they did seem to fail quite often so your bodge-repair has obviously worked so fair play to you sir