New project - Vepsa PX

[vespakev]

Hello! Been looking around the site for a little while - this is my first post here...

Id like to resore my vespa PX 125 and have been looking at options for stripping and painting it. It has all the usual issues for its age - surface rust on the floorboards, behind the brake light, around the clutch lever pivot bold and up throught the central seam on the front mudguard. Its only 6 years old but ive covered a fair few miles on it come rain or shine and its starting to look a bit weathered. There's the odd dink and scuff here and there too but nothing major.

Ideally id like to buy a compressor and gun and do everything myself. But before i get to that stage i wondering just what sort of preparation is going to be required before a repaint. Is it possible to just key the existing surface or is it worth dipping, shot blasting or using any other technique to take the shell and panels back to bare metal? The rust is going to have to be stripped right back but the majority of the paint on the scoot is in reasonable if not excellent condition. It looks as if it has a colour coat (black) with a clear coat on top.

Cheers,
Kev

 

[stuvy]

hello kev welcome to the forum, im surprised a 6 year old scoot rusted so quickly! if your planning on keeping the bike for some time then yes its better to strip it right down and do it properly. Saying that you can sand it down cut out the rust and repair it to a good standard if your patient.

Are you on a px forum too? id be keen to know if rust is a common issue on them

 

[breezer]

Rust is a problem if they are ridden in bad weather, salt on the road etc.

With them being a pressed monococque body there are lots of seams and lots of corners which road spray can get into. Also the running boards have alloy & rubber foot strips which fasten through the floor so these also trap water.

They were designed for better climates than ours after all...

 

[vespakev]

Hi Stuvy, thanks for the response.

They are prone to a bit of rust as breezer has said. Its only surface rust though, bubbling under the paint, so im reasonably sure it could be just sanded out rather than needing to be cut and replaced. Is there a specific process for sanding down clearcoat to paint on top? Does all of the clearcoat need to be removed or is it simply a case of roughing up the clearcoat surface to get a good key? I assume once sanded it would be a coat of primer then a dusting of colour followed by a few more coats of colour? As i'd be doing this at home I'd be going the celly route...

 

[pedrobedro]

I've welded a couple of really old Vespa scooters in the past but they were stripped down to bare chassis and I used a fibre disc to take the paint off where I was welding on the footboards as they were cracked. My favourite weapon at the moment is a polycarbide clean and strip disc which fetches paint and rust off metal and doesn't damage the good stuff. If you have bubbles under the paint it usually means something is getting in from behind.