Thursday, December 17, 2009

Hose Clamp Update

I still don't like hose clamps.

However, I'm happy to report that tightening the clamp mentioned back here took care of the coolant leak. I love easy fixes.

Now I just have to get a new battery for the Vespa ET4. I was disappointed to find that my local purveyor of fine motorcycle batteries did not have a suitable battery in stock, so I'm going to have to go somewhat out of my way tonight to get one. Also, just to make sure everyone knows, the kickstarter on the ET4? Worse than useless. I was told it didn't work if the battery was dead, but I didn't realize it wouldn't work if the battery was just too low to crank the starter.

Disappointing. It's a good thing the little Vespa has so much going for it otherwise.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Lucky:

I didn't know that about the ET4. Is it fuel injected ? otherwise I would have thought it would kick start. This sort of defeats the whole purpose of a manual kick starter.

If only all your problems could be solved by just tightening up a hose clamp

bob
bobskoot: wet coast scootin

Lucky said...

bobskoot - No, it has a carburetor.

The story goes that Vespa introduced the ET4 without a kickstarter, and the Vespa fans had a fit because there was no kickstarter. So they added a halfway functional one, but didn't really design it to be used.

Nice, huh?

irondad said...

I once solved one of my problems by tightening a big hose clamp....around somebody's neck.

How many D batteries would it take to start a Vespa?