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What's a Joker, and you're going to do what?!

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The MX5 Cobra is out of the shed, so room for my next project 👍 MX5 Cobra project (see NZ Japanese Cobra blog) is all done bar the painting (soon hopefully). So, it makes way for my next project... Electric Conversion of a Classic Scooter So, I was toying with the idea of getting an electric bicycle to ride to work (on nice weather days 😃), but... wow, aren't they expensive for what you get! I then looked at electric scooters (moped scooters). For not much more than the cost of an electric bicyle you can get an electric scooter, but not a very nice looking one (like a Vespa or similar classic scooter). Then I remembered that before I decided to do the MX5 Cobra I liked the idea of doing an electric car conversion - so, light bulb moment - let's do an electric scooter conversion! A bit of research later to see how feasible it would be, estimating likely costs, etc, and the project was a go. But, what scooter should I convert? Obviously, the name "Vespa...
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The Electric Bits and Outer Bits

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Electric moped scooter wiring diagram
Electric Scooter Wiring Diagram (click diagram to get a clearer view)

I traced all the wires on the blue Electro Scoot scooter, confirming with voltage readings on the working red scooter, and came up with the above basic wiring diagram. Pretty straight-forward once you've worked through it all.

I then labelled all of the connectors and removed the motor controller, 12V voltage regulator, wiring loom, thottle control, instrument cluster and other electrical bits I think I'll need from blue scooter.

"Electro Scoot" scooter electrical components
Wiring bits removed from the Electro Scoot scooter

All looks pretty simple and I think the Electro Scoot wiring will interface to the Joker scooter's controls and lights ok. Just need to hunt down some LED light bulbs now...

Right, what's next while I wait for the frame and rear wheel assembly to come back from the engineer? Let's have a look at tidying up the Joker's seat, panels and covers...

First I disassembled all of the panels and trim and gave them a good clean. Then, I used some headlight lens polish (lightly abrasive, but not as bad as cut & polish compound) to cut & polish the panels and trim.

Hmm, still some scratches can be seen - even a few that are right through to the white plastic layer below. So, time to do some research on how flip-paint (colour change paint) is applied and how to patch it. Found out that first you need a black base, so I then touch-painted the scratches with black paint.

I then found some Chimera (green to purple) flip paint pigment powder on eBay. 5g of powder is enough for mixing with 200ml of clear lacquer. I then bought 2x 30ml touch-up bottles of clear lacquer on TradeMe. After a bit of experimentation later, I then touched-up the previously black painted scratches. The green on the touch-up flip-paint is a bit lighter/brighter than the original paint, but the purple is a perfect match, so it sort of works out ok - definitely better than white scratches and even the straight black.

Finally, I sprayed all of the panels and trim with clear lacquer, and how does it look?

Honda Joker Replica outer panels restored
Look at all those shiny, sparkly bits!

Honda Joker Replica moped outer panels

Honda Joker Replica scooter outer panels


Pretty damn good I reckon!

Then... Bang! We're in lockdown - thanks COVID-19 - grrr!

Bike frame is still away at the engineers (and MX5 Cobra is still at the painters), so everything is on hold for a few weeks/months now.

Oh, well. Time to catch up with some hedge trimming and other maintenance around the farm... which, to be fair, is overdue due to spending so much time on these projects 😀. See you next post once I've made more progress.





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