Sweatin' to the oldies...

Well, maybe it would be more accurately stated as: the oldie is sweating.  No Richard Simmons routine, but I went out to mount the top box this morning.  It was already 77º at 7:30 when I opened up the cargo trailer.

With the back of the trailer opened, it faced south... just out of the blazing sun once inside.  I gathered up the few tools I needed and started what should have been a 20 minute install.  Of course, it never goes that way.  With 3 of the 4 mounting brackets installed, I noticed that the Vespa rack wasn't sitting level... closer examination showed that the spring loading on it had pulled it enough that the parts of the rack weren't fitting properly.

I took the mounting brackets off, only dropping one, right at the end.  "I'll get that in a moment," I thought to myself.  I put all the little pieces in a safe spot then went to work on the rack... the spring loading reminded me of that on a garage door... on a smaller basis, of course.  About 15 minutes of prying and pulling, and I had the rack solid again.

Now to find that small (very specifically bent) mounting bracket... nope.  I looked under the bike.  Concerned that it might have somehow wedged itself in the rear disc brake, I got down on my hands and knees to check that.  Nope.  I rolled the scoot out of the trailer and got on my hands and knees again to look there.  Nope.  Under the trailer?  Nope.  Being a guy, I am aware of our gender's inability to see things in plain sight.  I asked for some help.

In the meantime, with about half of the spring loading intentionally undone, I remounted the base plate for the top box... it is fitting much better now.  As I tightened down the third bracket, Joan came out, looked around for about 30 seconds and said: "Here it is!"  It had somehow managed to stand itself upright in the track support for the trailer door.  Never in a million years would I have found that.

I put the last mounting bracket on and test fitted the top box... looks straight, sets well, the top opens and closes, but... that Vespa folding rack (with the spring loading to keep it upright) is going to "bounce" without some means of locking it down.  Two heavy-duty cable ties did the job.

I took the scoot for a ride to make sure everything is solid and rattle-free.  Yep.

While I like the classically sporty look of the Vespa without the top box, this is going to be very functional...

And the function...

The full-face modular helmet fits with room for other stuff around it.

And the "sweatin'"?  You can see from the shadows, that once I moved the scoot out of the trailer, there was no hiding from the sun; it was 81º when I finished.  Warm and humid... and probably some sweating thanks to all the other stuff that went into making that 20 minute job take about an hour and a half.  In the morning sun.