Customer Reviews

How to Restore and Maintain Your Vespa Motorscooter (Motorbooks Workshop)

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

A must book for the Vespa owner. The perfect companion to a Haynes' manual for your particular scooter. Between the two, you should have all the knowledge you need to tackle everything from routine maintenance through a major restoration (including a pretty tasty chapter on performance improvements).

The information is very accessible presented in an engaging style that encourages both a cover to cover read, or skipping about gathering bits here and there. If you ever considered owning one of these classics, but were abashed by the prospect of doing your own maintenance and restoration, this book makes it easy. There is a scooter mechanic within each of us. This book lets him loose.

More than a book teaching you how to "restore and maintain your vespa," this is a history book about vespas. Also, this book should have been called "Tips for restoring and maintaining your vespa motorscooter assuming you are already familiar with vespa mechanical systems and jargon" because it does NOT cover even the most basic of things in a way comprehensible to anyone but those already familiar with vespas. For example, in explaining how to remove the engine, the instructions say, "Before putting in the pinion axle, make sure the zerk fitting is installed in the proper direction. One way will clear the speedometer cable, the other won't. That's why the hole in the trunnion is cast at an angle." Too bad it doesnt tell you what a "pinion axle," "zerk fitting," or "trunnion" is, nor does it provide any pictures.

Speaking of the pictures, they are so random and are rarely, if ever, useful. The step by step instructions are also not nearly as comprehensive as they need to be. Anyone who works on vespas can tell you that dropping the front fork (without pulling your hair out) cannot be distilled into one page for a beginner.

Complaints aside, there are a handful of useful pointers that can be culled from here or there. But it's probably a lot easier to get that information from a vespa message board or from your mechanic than from buying this book. Online vespa communities have made this book largely irrelevant.

I am currently restoring my 1970 Rally 180 and this book has been a priceless resource. I am somewhat handy with tools but don't know all that much about engines and all that. This book helped me with everything I was unsure of. It contains just about everything you need to know in easy to read steps. In addition to the restoration section it also give tips for maintaining your scoot. Also, it has a nice little history of Piaggio and the Vespa motorscooter. This book is necassary for anyone who is restoring a Vespa. Especially if you are not as mechanically handy as you would like to be like me. The only downside to this book (and it really isn't a downside) is that everything is generalized for either large frame or small frame bikes. It doesn't really get into individual models very much. This isn't that big of a deal since they are all very similar. Just combine this book with the Haynes Manual for your bike and you are good to go.

As noted in previous reviews, this is an excellent resource to use along with a more model-specific manual for your particular scooter. I am restoring a 1955 150cc and found that much of the information is specific to the GS, small-frame and P-series scooters, with not nearly as much for the less common models like my own. You can get a long way with this book and it's a very good reference for Vespa history and all, but you'll still need something like a Haynes as well if you're going to get elbows-deep in scooter innards.

To be honest I was a little disappointed with this book. It does have some handy information and can help out every now and then, but I really think it is lacking in the details and the "how to" field. I would pick the Haynes manual over this book any day. At least the manual takes it through the process one step at a time. A handy book to have as an addition to your collection of books, but certainly not the main one that I now refer to.

I bought this book to help me service my wife's 1966 Vespa VBC, which is a large-frame 150. The book has a great overview of the Vespa company and the various Vespa models dating back to the 1940s, and a lot of general information that I find helpful. It has very little detail about servicing scooters, and is quite lacking in illustrations.

If you're thinking about buying a Vespa to repair, you should probably get this book. If you already have a Vespa in need of repair that you plan to do yourself, you're going to be disappointed with it.

I am a self-taught gearhead and I learned pretty much everything I know about engines and car repair from John Muir's "How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive..." which I consider to be one of the greatest books ever written.

So I was in need of a Vespa book because I was elbows-deep in a rusty Vespa with the need to put it back together and decided this book might be easier and more fun to work from than a standard service manual (Haynes). I was very wrong. There are no schematics, no exploded parts lists and the provided wiring diagrams are tiny and completely useless.

The book offers many tips and advice, but not a lot of actual instructions. Some of the tips are helpful and exclusive to Vespas, but most of them are fairly obvious to anyone who has ever had any interest in repairing any motorized vehicle ever. The book does a poor job referencing itself and by the time you get to the last chapter, it's still treating you like you just picked it up and haven't read the preceding 133 pages.

There is plenty of good information about Vespas in "How to Restore and Maintain Your Vespa" but there is relatively little information addressing the actual "how-to" aspect of Vespa repair. This book would be a good companion book to go with a real service manual. Read the related chapter before you begin to get you thinking about the procedure. But it won't tell you how to do it.

Heaven knows we need good scooter repair rebuild guides but this isn't one. If you're a beginner this book will hardly help you at all as it lacks enough detail on each repair. If you're experienced then you won't need this book.
It's very poorly detailed, if you try to do a specific job you won't find written advice or you'll find that but no illustration. This is no sticky's guide.

Save your money.

Great little book with lots of great info: from the history of Vespa scooters to tips about choosing the right model to (of course) information about restoring and maintaining the scooter, the book has it all!

Pictures are all in b&w and the look is a little old-fashioned, but I don't think that is necessarily a big problem.

If you really have to own ONE book about Vespa scooters, this should be it!

Being a first time Vespa owner, I found the book very helpful and informative. This book should give any Vespa owner the right advice to perform routine maintenance, rebuilds and restoration as needed.