Piaggio BV 250 Restore

[pinkscoot]

I rescued another scooter. This time its a 2007 Piaggio BV 250. I was trying to decide if I wanted a Piaggio Typhoon 125 4 stroke when I saw the same seller had this for the same price:

When I was trying to decide what 250 to get and went with the Vespa GTS 250ie The BV 250 had been on my list. I love the Vespa but I have to say the BV is a great looking scoot. It has the same engine as the Vespa just a longer case. The painted plastics are in good shape the others are weathered and one footrest is cracked.  At some point it was broken into so none of the locks work. Otherwise it is complete.

I put it on the bench today to see what's up with it. The centerstand was bent so it had a lean. The first thing I did was get that straight so that it had a solid base to work with. It looks like it got dragged at some point, all of the damage is on the left side. A little heat a little muscle and its back to normal. Next on to why it wasn't getting fuel. It has a vacuum fuel pump so I applied vacuum to the vacuum line and nothing. I suspect that there is something not working filter, vacuum pump, hoses it could be any of the above. I went ahead and gave it a shot of starter fluid and it roared to life and died. While investigating the carb it looks like the intake is cracked.

I need to pull a lot of plastic before I can get to anything. I plan on Tuesday to take it to the DMV inspector to start the bonded title process. Until that's complete its going to sit and wait. I'll keep you all updated.

[stepthrutuner]

You'll love the ride of the larger wheels. Got a decent windshield too.

[pinkscoot]

I got all my paperwork in, now its time to wait 3-4 months before I get the title.

[Senna1Rossi]

Cool! Can't wait to see her run!

[pinkscoot]

Good News I received the title yesterday, its all mine. Time to start poking at it and see what parts it needs to run. Then decide what I want to do to make it run faster.

[pinkscoot]

The Scarabeo got me motivated to work on this today, what a mess, where do I start. The gas tank was full of shellac, the gas was ancient. The fuel line from the tank was pinched The vacuum pump was a mess. The vacuum lines were not good either. This is harder than the Scarabeo to work on. Its like a puzzle that you need to fin that one piece to pull before anything else will come apart. I got all the back plastics off and pulled the tank. I decided I would clean this up like new so it would look good as well as run well. collinsd84 came over and helped me pull the engine so I can clean it. Either I didn't get all the coolant or it was low and thick. But I got them apart and the next task is to get the engine and frame nice and shiny.

[lordverminaard]

Man where do you find this stuff? Around here people want $2000 for a 1990 Honda Elite 80's and stuff. I'd love to find and flip scoots but I don't think the market here in Columbus would really work for that.

That BV looks like it will be a REALLY nice ride, fast too!

Brendan

[pinkscoot]

I used to keep an eye on CL all of the time. I finally broke that habit when I had to get a storage unit for my project bikes. The BV has the same engine as my Vespa except its carbureted. It has a top speed of 83mph they say. and a nice comfortable seat.

[pinkscoot]

I got into the Carb yesterday, I only stripped one screw but will replace all of them. It was pretty bad. The jets were clean but the piece the main jet screws into had rust on it:

I didn't know brass could get rusty. The atomizer it slips into is steel I think. I didn't see it but I'll dig for it on Saturday. The diaphragm was good but the accelerator pump was frozen. I got it moving so I'll hope for the best on that. There are no rebuild kits available for these Keihin CVK 30mm carbs, The guy at Scooterpartsco has a generic one but I'm not sure about it. I suspect this carb is a goner. I'll give it a cleaning anyway.

[RollingThunder]

Oct 19, 2017 19:00:13 GMT -5 pinkscoot said:

I got into the Carb yesterday, I only stripped one screw but will replace all of them. It was pretty bad. The jets were clean but the piece the main jet screws into had rust on it:

I didn't know brass could get rusty. The atomizer it slips into is steel I think. I didn't see it but I'll dig for it on Saturday. The diaphragm was good but the accelerator pump was frozen. I got it moving so I'll hope for the best on that. There are no rebuild kits available for these Keihin CVK 30mm carbs, The guy at Scooterpartsco has a generic one but I'm not sure about it. I suspect this carb is a goner. I'll give it a cleaning anyway.

There are individual parts available for CVK carbs if you can find an ATV or motorcycle that uses the same carb. That atomizer is called a needle jet and all the ones I've seen in genuine Keihin carbs have been brass. I would try cleaning the outside with some Scotchbrite and see what happens. I think I have a 32 and 34mm Keihin CVK in a box somewhere that I could compare parts for you if needed.

[pinkscoot]

Thanks Rolling Thunder, let me get into it more and see what I can find. Between a good soak and an ultrasonic cleaner I should get that cleaned up. I'm new to the CVK carbs, give me a Dellorto 2 stroke carb anytime.

[lordverminaard]

My general consensus on Keihin carbs is that they are very high quality, especially for an OEM carb, but they are too bloody complicated to work on. The factory Keihins on my KZ400 had about 5 million different jets in it and none of them were available off the shelf. To make matters worse, some of the '76 KZ's (like mine) had a one-year only carb on them and they were only shared with one of the similar Honda models for also about one year. (with different jets of course)

I guess if all else fails, you could probably fit a PHBH with 4-stroke atomizer on it and it would probably work, lol.

Good luck,
Brendan

[pinkscoot]

This weekend I was able to get some more cleaning done. I gave the carb and parts a good cleaning with carb cleaner and then gave all of the metal a bath in an ultrasonic cleaner with water and simple green. Everything came out clean and It looks like all of the passages are clean:


I think the carb will be usable.

I decided to open the CVT to see what kind of shape its in. The clutch bell was stuck on the shaft so I needed to persuade it with a gear puller. It came off and the splines looked good. Though the belt had some mold on it it looked pretty new. When I took it off I found a piece of belt in the case so I guess the belt blew out and it got replaced. I found it strange that the belt sits about a half inch up on the variator so take off would be a little sluggish. I checked the belt and it was right so I'm wondering if the drive boss or variator are wrong.
 
It is all one big mystery. I am planning on getting an aftermarket variator so that may solve the problem.

Edit: I just went to a parts page and found the problem, there is supposed to be a spacer on the drive boss. Its part 5 here:


I pulled the old intake off and it was cracked in two places like I suspected. Glad I bought the replacement one. 

Pulling the variator I found an oil leak from the oil sump, it turns out the bolt I pulled that held the brake cable on should have been tightened. No loss the oil was black and thin so it needed to go anyway. Fortunately I had a replacement gasket that I put on. 

I got the frame cleaned up and pulled the front plastics. There were more hidden screws than I had ver seen before. I looked at the head light housing and I need to figure out how to get the turn signals into it. More on that later. 

I hope this weekend will give me time back on it when the parts come in from Scooterpartsco. 

[pinkscoot]

With the nice weather and my knee feeling better I got into the garage. It took some time to sort and straighten things so I could get to work. I started the replacement of the silent block:


This is part of the engine mount and it softens the shock of the engine to the frame. This is the original thats rubber and has started to rot you can see in the picture how its smashed up to one side.These are specific to Italian scooters, Vespas have the very same thing. I cut it out and removed the whole engine mount. I'm replacing it with a Malossi polyurethane one partially to stiffen the ride and partially because its easier to install. The rubber ones are about 3/8" larger than the opening and require a special tool or a bunch of hose clamps and washers and bolts to pull into place. I was planning on installing it today but oops I forgot to put it in the freezer to shrink it a bit. Instead I cleaned the frame some more and got Rustoleum on a few rust spots. About that time my knee was asking me to take it easy so I was done.

[pinkscoot]

It was okay weather here I could work with the garage door shut so I decided to get the engine back under the scoot. At least this way I can get it off the lift to work on other scoots. First I had to get the silent block back together. The block itself was sleeping in the freezer so it was time to throw the bracket in the oven. I let it heat at 225f for 30 minutes while I assembled the hardware to pull the block into it. When the time came it pulled in so easily i probably could have pushed by hand. At least it went in straight.
Before:

After:


The only complaint I have heard is that the solid one causes more vibration, the up side I would think is that it would stiffen the ride. I'll find out. 

I was now ready to install the engine so I invited my friend and neighbor  collinsd84 over to help. This is a pretty big engine so moving it around is better done with 2 people. After some grunting and bumping we managed to get it in. I then put the gas tank back in and got to the fuel pump and had a head scratching moment that required me to put this question out there: 49ccscoot.proboards.com/thread/20712/vacuum-fuel-pump-question. About that time my knee said it was quitting time.