LCGB Forums

I'm tickled pink with my new purchase, this series 2 LI125

What's the best route? Just maintain it and renew as little as possible; tweak the motor with rt195, bigger carb and clubman; maybe stick with points? It's hard to decide.

On one hand I feel a degree of responsibility to keep it as original as possible, but on the other I want to make it nice to ride. A bog-stock LI125 certainly won't be much fun once I get past the end of the street.

At the moment, I'm thinking rt195, 28ish mm carb, some clubman or other, ditch the airbox and maybe vape ignition. Renew the inner cables and tyres; might need new outers but I hope not. The springs and damper will likely get replaced.

I saw that up for sale. It appears a lovely unmolested example. I suspect that we would all have our own ideas of what to do with it to make it rideable in modern traffic.

If You're upping the engine..... that speedo wil have to go too Rich......

Fast n Furious wrote:If You're upping the engine..... that speedo wil have to go too Rich......

It's part of its character Pete! Anyway, who looks at lambretta speedo?

It's going into my mate's lockup while I finish some other jobs. Got a motor to build for a mate's TV200, I'm going to swap the RT230 reed motor from my special and put it in my LI bitsa, then sell the special with the 175 motor I tuned in another thread. So if anyone is l looking for a very tidy special with a nice 175 motor, then give me a shout.

I don't want to start work on this until I've cleared the decks. It's too easy to get distracted and get nowt finished otherwise.

Dickie I’m sure so said that you would not be doing another?
Great purchase

shane BBoys wrote:Dickie I’m sure so said that you would not be doing another?

I think you may have misunderstood. Or maybe I did

I’d leave it completely alone. There aren’t that many left like that and as soon as it’s messed with it’s just another series 2

bsso78 wrote:I’d leave it completely alone. There aren’t that many left like that and as soon as it’s messed with it’s just another series 2

Yes, I agree, butbi still want a little more oomph than 5bhp or whatever it is. If I do anything engine wise, I'll be keeping all the original parts safely together.

I could go down the route of a standard gp150 barrel and jetting to suit?

Tough call to make.

I think your original idea with the RT kit is a perfect solution. It is just not practical nowadays to leave engine as it is if you intend to use it. Not as if you couldn't put it back if you desired. Lovely looking bike by the way

Nice purchase and I think you are spot on with the idea to upgrade the performance. I'd concider the GT186 kit personally, with a smaller carb you could even retain the Airbox.

With your porting skills I'd suggest you need look no further than an over-bored OEM barrel -or an SR type barrel if you have many hours & patience - with a piston to suit from the Grampian catalogue. With a wise crankshaft selection, preferably longer stroke, longer rod & packing to suit, you can dial in your desires.

Air filtration is the civilised way to go, but @ the very least a better, more capable elbow/bellows will be in order. You might get away with a re-engineered OEM filter box.....

Carburation? Aha! PWK are filter friendly & do not cause hot start issues. They need checking out/blueprinting like every make of carburettor, but they are a joy to work with IMO.

The exhaust may as well be a DIY clubman. That way you can control the ''U' pipe & tailpipe sizes & even AV mount.

Retain points ignition (for reliability ) but go for a 'J'/Luna flywheel on a GP boss. Screwed on, not riveted......the boss will take an M6 tap & buttonheads are neat. Upgrade to 12 volt though. Do you know any good Sparkies? Is that an oxymoron?

A mate built a 200 engine along similar lines. He even set ignition @ 21 DBTDC. It was an absolute joy to ride.

Front brake? Well, what DON'T you know about inboard discs? Though a TV175 S2 drum brake would suit

Warkton Tornado No.1 wrote:With your porting skills I'd suggest you need look no further than an over-bored OEM barrel -or an SR type barrel if you have many hours & patience - with a piston to suit from the Grampian catalogue. With a wise crankshaft selection, preferably longer stroke, longer rod & packing to suit, you can dial in your desires.

Air filtration is the civilised way to go, but @ the very least a better, more capable elbow/bellows will be in order. You might get away with a re-engineered OEM filter box.....

Carburation? Aha! PWK are filter friendly & do not cause hot start issues. They need checking out/blueprinting like every make of carburettor, but they are a joy to work with IMO.

The exhaust may as well be a DIY clubman. That way you can control the ''U' pipe & tailpipe sizes & even AV mount.

Retain points ignition (for reliability ) but go for a 'J'/Luna flywheel on a GP boss. Screwed on, not riveted......the boss will take an M6 tap & buttonheads are neat. Upgrade to 12 volt though. Do you know any good Sparkies? Is that an oxymoron?

A mate built a 200 engine along similar lines. He even set ignition @ 21 DBTDC. It was an absolute joy to ride.

Front brake? Well, what DON'T you know about inboard discs? Though a TV175 S2 drum brake would suit

Interesting ideas there. I have a sr175 cylinder bored out to match a 64mm Mitaka piston. The porting it needs is beyond my skill levels and tools but wouldn't take much from one or two clever folk that I know. I'd completely forgot about this option!

I have a 25phbl lying around and a series 3 airbox gutted, with a bgm mesh filter. It also has 4 x 35mm holes in it, which means it gets plenty of air, albeit warm from under the panels. I've just sold a crank that would have been perfect at 60/115. I'm not sure what flywheel you mean, but I have an af light one that I could fit a gp points boss into. I much prefer full DC ignition but that means lots of modern looking stuff, which while it's under the panels is still not very nice.

For the front brake, I think I'll stick with drum and possibly reverse pull, although again, I'm not ecstatic about the aesthetic side of that.

Tyres wise, I like the Scooter Center Michelin ACS copies. Yes, they are old tread pattern but with a three ply sidewall. They suit an original Lambretta. I can’t yet give you a full road test, having probably done less than 20 miles on mine

Storkfoot wrote:Tyres wise, I like the Scooter Center Michelin ACS copies. Yes, they are old tread pattern but with a three ply sidewall. They suit an original Lambretta. I can’t yet give you a full road test, having probably done less than 20 miles on mine

Yes, they look good don't they? I usually use scootsmarts as they handle so well, but they would look wrong on this. The profile looks good on them. Other classic tread tyres all seem to have a very 'flat' cross section which makes them slow to tip into corners and just really doesn't suit my riding. I don't ride like a teenager, but after years of great handling sports bikes, I've possibly got higher expectations than I should have

I had a series 2 a few years ago and it was untouched and completely standard apart from a series 3 exhaust and it actually went quite well

Nice

Fantastic scooter

bsso78 wrote:I had a series 2 a few years ago and it was untouched and completely standard apart from a series 3 exhaust and it actually went quite well

I've got a reasonably quick 175 which will probably be a 230 soon. So I'm leaning toward just replacing tyres, inner cables and an engine rebuild.

Maybe later, after I've ridden it a while, i'll feel differently. But I know what you're saying about it just being anither s2.

Not convinced about the front brake backplate though. I'll inspect it and probably replace with a later one.

dickie wrote:

Warkton Tornado No.1 wrote:With your porting skills I'd suggest you need look no further than an over-bored OEM barrel -or an SR type barrel if you have many hours & patience - with a piston to suit from the Grampian catalogue. With a wise crankshaft selection, preferably longer stroke, longer rod & packing to suit, you can dial in your desires.

Air filtration is the civilised way to go, but @ the very least a better, more capable elbow/bellows will be in order. You might get away with a re-engineered OEM filter box.....

Carburation? Aha! PWK are filter friendly & do not cause hot start issues. They need checking out/blueprinting like every make of carburettor, but they are a joy to work with IMO.

The exhaust may as well be a DIY clubman. That way you can control the ''U' pipe & tailpipe sizes & even AV mount.

Retain points ignition (for reliability ) but go for a 'J'/Luna flywheel on a GP boss. Screwed on, not riveted......the boss will take an M6 tap & buttonheads are neat. Upgrade to 12 volt though. Do you know any good Sparkies? Is that an oxymoron?

A mate built a 200 engine along similar lines. He even set ignition @ 21 DBTDC. It was an absolute joy to ride.

Front brake? Well, what DON'T you know about inboard discs? Though a TV175 S2 drum brake would suit

Interesting ideas there. I have a sr175 cylinder bored out to match a 64mm Mitaka piston. The porting it needs is beyond my skill levels and tools but wouldn't take much from one or two clever folk that I know. I'd completely forgot about this option!

I have a 25phbl lying around and a series 3 airbox gutted, with a bgm mesh filter. It also has 4 x 35mm holes in it, which means it gets plenty of air, albeit warm from under the panels. I've just sold a crank that would have been perfect at 60/115. I'm not sure what flywheel you mean, but I have an af light one that I could fit a gp points boss into. I much prefer full DC ignition but that means lots of modern looking stuff, which while it's under the panels is still not very nice.

For the front brake, I think I'll stick with drum and possibly reverse pull, although again, I'm not ecstatic about the aesthetic side of that.

You can retain points for reliability & looks with a 12 v stator but utilise the lighter flywheel from a 'J' which can be persuaded to fit a GP boss. The eight fixing holes just need slotting a little.

As far as front brakes are concerned, I just am prejudiced against the peg type, though Serveta went to that on 200's when they 'dumb downed' the SX.

As for tyres, I might have an old Varnmo or John Bull you can have