Scooterotica

Hi all,

I'm new to scootering and currently just looking to buy my first.

I've seen a series 3 li 125 that i really like and as i have no 'scooter friends' to take along with me for the viewing, i'm hoping you guys might be able to answer a question i have.

The scooter looked very nice and straight. It had been repainted, but looked good.

I was careful to inspect the legshield area for rippling after reading to check this for signs of accidents. It looked very straight but i did notice while looking closely down there that there was a bit of a gap between the rubber beading where the front mudguard meets the legshield. It looked everso slightly more of a gap on one side to the other but not a lot. Obviously its my understanding that all this should sit flush.

And to my question: is this like a known tell tale sign of a bigger problem i.e legshield/frame bent or twisted, or do you guys think its probably just be down to poor refitting, poor rubbers or ill fitting aftermarket panels?

Don't get me wrong, it was a very small gap, but just wanna get my fingers burnt with something big and have not asked the question.

Cheers in advance guys, your thoughts appreciated.

From my experience,and my first as well,not much fits perfectly.If you buy Stickys book,it will give you measurements to check if its been in a head on and bent the frame.
Good luck.

Difficult to say without pictures but the panels not fitting properly is not necessarily as sign of anything other than sloppy assembly. The frame is a fairly stout tube (as in scaffold tube) running front to back but can become distorted/bent in accidents. The alignment of the front mudguard wouldn't be affected by any frame distortion I wouldn't think but it is always possible that the leggies and or mudguard have been repaired poorly. You could use it as a bargaining chip to get the price down and get it sorted or find another.

Colin

where are you Run15?

you will find someone on here to come with you to inspect.

Chris

Thanks guys. This is the kind of input i was hoping for. I think prob just poor refitting or something like that myself. I just thought, it'd be my luck that i think that, buy the scoot and then find out its a known sign to look out for and it was something more serious.

Chris, i'm in Greater Manchester mate

I saw something recently by Rimini, might have been on FB, where they had a batch of frames and stuck them all on the jig to check and it turned out 90% of them had some sort of issue needing corrected...

Thats crazy, but i suppose i can see it.

I've had a few classic cars and would be intrested in someone surveying classic car body shells to see what percentage contain a baked bean tin!

The most difficult part of a resto is the bodywork (IMO) The most difficult part of the bodywork is the legshields. It's not at all unusual for legshields to be a little out of shape after repair. This is probably what has caused the gap. If it's small, ignore it.

It was Rimini on their FB

https://www.facebook.com/139409247900/p ... 01/?type=3

Thanks again all. Its made me a little less concerned. I'll take another look at it anyway just to be sure.

That facebook page was an interesting read. Crazy stuff, but like it says, these things are 50 year old so likely to have ended up on the deck in some fashion somewhere in their life.