Stella had her first hiccup last week.  I noticed that she was having some difficulty accelerating from a complete stop on the way to work.  On the way home it was bad enough that I had to gun the engine to keep her from completely stalling out.  Not good.  After a little research and a post on StellaSpeed, the consensus was that it was either a clogged idle jet or a bad spark plug.  Replacing the plug didn’t do the trick, so I cracked open the carburetor and blasted the idle jet with some carb cleaner.  Problem solved!

Total cost to fix it myself: $5 and an hour of my time.  Cost if I would have gone to the mechanic: Probably at least $100 in labor to come to the same conclusion.  Hopefully all my future Stella troubles will be this easy to fix.

I just got a new scooter.  A beautiful Avocado green Stella with white wall tires.  It’s basically a modernized Vespa PX150.  In fact, they’re made in an old PX150 factory.  The only big difference between the Stella and it’s Vespa brother is a slightly improved engine and breaking system.

So why buy a scooter that was state of the art in the 70’s?  Here’s where the “science” comes in.  While electronics and computers are very familiar to me, I know next to nothing about engines.  However, I have always been interested and have performed several minor acts of vehicle surgery in the past.  The Stella, like the Vespa, was designed with the intent of being 100% user serviceable.  Theoretically, all you need is a little mechanical aptitude and a copy of the Haynes manual to keep one running.  It also helps to have a brother that’s a certified 2-stroke mechanic.

So while my new Stella should give me a few years of trouble-free service, I’m actually looking forward to my first mechanical problem to solve.  I definitely can’t say the same about my car.