Engine – Restoration

Why oh why do people play around trying to repair casings when they haven’t got a clue? Here we have a genuine Sx200 casing which someone had fitted a helicoil to every thread! These weren’t the problem, someone had fitted a Tapex insert as described in the old 60’s tuning book…….. these are crap and I’ve seen loads of casings nearly wrote off because of them. The out side thread is just too big for a Lambretta casing and always breaks through. The main problem was some one had welded loads of bits and bobs but not finished them off right but had used a grinder to flatten them off! Which meant I had to weld a little bit here and there and mount the crankside side, mag and base face in the miller to do the best I could at keeping the faces true to each other, not without the Innocenti engine jig and tooling it’s near impossible so I could only do my best.

And there was dents and chunks all over which needed patching up. And for some reason someone had cut off the main casing where the spare wheel jack stand fits! Well I’ve never seen that before so with plenty of knackered SIL casings doing the rounds I had a good bit to rob. And luckily for me this came from a very long standing customer who knows how I work and gave me a budget which I managed to do it cheaper by £150 so I hope it pleased him when he got the bill.

Here’s before and after shots