Now that the side cover is fixed it can be tig welded to repair holes from previous owners. Then it will be primed like the rest of the body. Then it will all be hand sanded and primed again. This process is repeated until it looks as smooth as a babies bum. Then we Paint!!!!!! Hopefully soon this is over a year after I started.

Once it was attached I realized that the 55year old aluminum was warped and bent in ways I hadn't noticed before. MOre metal bumping and reshaping until it finally fit and worked properly.

welding arms

Making the arms to match the origionals was not too bad but welding them at the right angles was.

This was the hardest part

I had to repair the side door from scratch as someone had broken off the two arms that allow the side cover to swing up. This was about a week of fabricating and fitting and swearing and finally succeeding.

Back in the game

Okay work is slowing down and my camera is fixed. Here's some shots of all the friggin sanding I've been doing. The steel has been made very straight and required little bondo but he 55yr old aluminum fender and side cowls were pretty mushy. They had to be bondoed more for reshaping and smoothing purposes.

update

Sorry no updates. Camera is broken and I have been working non-stop since May. Will post when I get some time to work on bike.

After doing all the hammer and dolly work a couple a very thin layers of filler are added to smooth out all the small ripples and imperfections.

The frame is starting to look very nice.
I can't wait till it is painted!

After we repaired the tears in the front
Vince showed me how to straighten it all out.

I can't belive I actually got it staright with the hammer and dolly

Notice Vinces ride in the back. A fairlane with a racing engine.
It gets less than 2 miles per gallon. It cost him $20 to back it out of the garage(hahaha)
Notice the sweet paint job.

The rear wheel well had a bad crack that repaired with two screws and a plate.
It was repaired and sealed.

That ugly lead patch on the floor was removed with a welding torch

which revealed a couple of holes and a tear. This whole side was damaged by a crash

as all the sheet metal is warped. Vince straightened it all out!

Here are some close ups of the filled holes

We started the body repairs and they decided to teach me a few things and let me do it myself.Awesome. Saves labour cost and I get to learn. Vince did all the hole filling with a brazing rod and then showed me how to file it all down.

These are all the small bits after they have been etched. It's not primer like I thought it would be. It simply gets sprayed on and it burns the metal until it is sealed. Then the corrective work is done like dent removal, straightening and hole filling. The frame was worked on today and man is Vince ever freaking good. He straightened out the legsheild by finding a weak spot on the floor!. He pushed it around and whammo - the legsheild goes back to where it was pressed in the factory. Unreal.

Evrything is sandblasted and ready for paint now.
Look how clean the seems are. no sign of rot anywhere.

This was a pig of a job but the labour was free

Well I gone back at it hard and this is by far the worse part so far. Trying to use paint stripper on such a weird curvy surface is super tough. The fumes nearly killed me. The metal is in awesome shape though.

This is what I have been busy doing in my spare time. That is a lot of pieces to bead blast. I don't have a huge compressor do I have to wait for it to recharge alot. It will be so worth it when it is all done though.

Things have been slow

In case anyone has been stopping by lately I apologize for the lack of updates. I have been working away in the basement on small pieces. I only have the wheel hubs and the main body left. When the hubs are done I will bring it all in the body shop to start priming and repairs.
Photos coming then.


Cheers
Manuel

Here is a nice shot of a restored 1951-1953 Allstate.

Got this is the mail from England - absolutely priceless as far as tech info and parts diagrams.

Just got an engine shroud in the mail from SCOMO - thanks Chelsea. Yes it says "old as shit" I think that might be the official part #

It took about five hours to get this far on the rear luggage rack. And I didn't fill the house up with dust.

I was very inspired by the bead blaster at the autobody shop so I went to Princess Auto and picked one up on sale. It took a long time to put together. The first aggregate I put in filled up the basement with dust. So I caulked the thing shut.

After a week of trying different stuff I got it to work.

Post Christmas blah

I have been busy enjoying christamas so not much work got done. Will be back shortly with some updates


Manuel

Now the top. Look at that friggin goo. There are actually four layers of paint there. Green, red, brown and blue. Hopefully all the stipping will be done by christmas. Then the body work and priming will start. Hopefully I will have most of the engine back together by then.

The bottom all done. The aircraft stripper is great. With a razor scrapper this only took one hour.

The front fender turned out to be aluminum too.

All that aluminum should bring the top speed up to 70km/h. Uhhhh wait a minute..... I weigh 240lbs. Maybe I should not take this one out on the highway.

I'v finished the small bits. Now it's time to tackle the frame.

This is a Vespa "U" model. Only 7000 were made. One recently sold on Ebay for $13,000US.

The only difference between this bike and mine is the front fender and the engine cowl. Mine is even the same colour of green under all the layers of paint.

I would bet my bottom dollar that they were all made at the same time and some made into Allstates and some into U's

After a few days you get a couple of boxes of cleaned up parts ready for etching primer.

Steel on the left - aluminum on the right.

This is a shot inside the bead stripper . You can see the protective gloves and the handlebars in there.

Now that I have most of the small bits done it is time to tackle the main frame. Cleaning 54 years of road goo off the wheel well.

Cleaned up the tailight. This tailight is specific to the earliest models only and so I'm glad it came with the bike because otherwise I would have had to sell a Kidney to buy one.

This is the galss bead stripper. Parts go in dirty and rusty.

And come out nice and clean and ready for paint

These are the electrical terminals that screww into the engine case at the stator. they are extremely hard to find new. And they cost about the same as a night for two at an expensive restaurant. Wanting to restore something historical is pretty grim somedays.

This is what 54 year old aluminum looks like when you strip the origional Vespa "u" seafoam green paint, the Allstate red, and the farmer's blue Tremclad off

MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM

Stripper!

Check out the old 40's van beside the workspace they gave me. The deal is I'm only allowed in i the morning if I have Tim Horton's with me.

I do all the ugly stuff - like the stripping and sanding and then I get professional work done from there for a very good price. It's awesome because with what I am learning they should be charging me tuition.

I've got the frame and all the bits at a professional body shop. These guys are crazy and they do the best body work and restorations in this area. They are showing me a lot about this kind of work. Note the can on the floor. It is aircraft paint stripper. Let me tell you - it has a real kick to it.

Yes it is phone wire!

Very nifty engine cases.

This part actuallt fits into the swingarm.

Motor out, seat and rack off, gas tank out, floor rails off, Yes that is a piece of phone cable coming out of the side just above the cowl. Two pair phone cable means four wires=farmer's wiring loom.

Just starting to dissassemble - motor is out and it is on the lift. Notice the extra stupid tailight.

Here it is in the basement of my house, before all the work starts.

Here is a frontal shot in the barn

This is how she looked in the barn. There were 200 bikes in this barn and I got the best one!

Oh jeez look at that stator!

I got the engine apart with a lot of help from people online. Everything was in good order except for the clutch which was in pieces.

This is what is looked like when I got it home

Almost complete and hardly any body damage or rust.

Not bad for a 54Years old bike!

Here we go!

I recently found a 1952 Vespa Allstate to restore. I am going to try to do a very nice job of it.
I will be posting pictures and annecdotes. Feel free to leave comments. Enjoy!