Modern Vespa

Since I'm about to get a corbin seat, I'm losing the LX150's utility hook / seat bag hook / grocery hook / helmet hook / whatever you want to call that thingy. I use that thing all the time for hauling groceries, gym bag, work bag, etc. So, finding a replacement was pretty important.

I discovered that the GTS hook fits nicely on the LX150 with just a few hardware store parts, and about $2 in Sculpy molding clay. I used the sculpy to give the flat base of the GTS zip cat hook (technically...that's what it's called) a curve so that it can sit well on the curved surface of the LX150 right under the VIN plate. There was plenty of room behind the plastic to add a metal base plate for sturdiness--I ended up re-tasking a metal light switch cover for the job. That plastic is easy to drill...like buttah. Anyways, I'm pretty psyched it fit so nicely.

Very nice work. I don't need to mod for my scoot but perhaps you can add photos of the work in progress for others how may want to ad the hook to their LX or ET.

Good work!!!

Nice custom mod.

It was kind of a "dammit-just-git-er-done" sort of impulse that finally drove me to it, so the build was actually done in an impatient flurry of activity one night, with whatever I happened to have around the house when the actual zip cat hook actually arrived. No photo-documentation done till it was all buttoned up.



The zip cat hook is part number 575819 in the parts catalog. It costs around $25 or something like that. The only additional parts you need are the sculpy clay, a metal light switch cover, a few fender washers to distribute the pressure on the back plate and the screws to attach the hook.

In terms of tools, you need a philips head #3 and a philips head #2 to get the apron off. You need a toaster oven to heat-set the sculpy clay once it's in the shape you need it to be. And you need a 3/8" drill bit, a sharpie, a scribe and a center punch to mark accurate drill points. And to work with the sculpy clay, I used some random thin flexible sheet of plastic (it just happened to be a polyethalene folder that I tasked for the job) to facilitate the shaping of it and its removal off of the hook once it's shaped.

Be sure you ask for the screws that fit in the back of it, unless you happen to have the right sized wood screw. There's not alot of depth to work with, so I took some self-tapping screws and trimmed down the tips so that it wouldn't stick out the front with my dremel tool. You can avoid that by just getting the right screw with the hook.

In terms of the process--it's fairly straightforward. There are a few nuances that would take a bit of effort to get into, but for the most part, you shape the clay between the hook and the leg shield liner till it fits the way you want to. Once it's shaped the right way, you take a trip to the toaster oven for about 30 minutes. Then you drill a few holes in the light switch cover to match the back of the hook (I had to drill an extra hole in the cover to get it to fit around a rivet, but that's just because of the particular size cover I had) and bend to fit on behind the plastic. add the fender washers and the screws...reassemble...yer done.

I do wish my ET had a hook there, too, instead of just on the seat. Can't have too many hooks!

Are you saying you used sculpy clay from the art store? I wonder how that is going to hold up long term or if it will somehow bleed out and affect your finish over time. Also, is it water tight? Our toy hauler had some sort of grey, clay-like gasket material around all the windows and other fittings and vents ... kind of like a very firm plumbers putty. I don't know what it is called, but you can probably buy it at a trailer supply. I think it would work really well for that application.

Sculpey (I misspelt it) clay is an interesting little modeling clay. It forms easily with hand pressure, sculpts readily with sculpting tools. But it permanently hardens when you bake it, so there's no further deformation or bleeding possible. It's farily rigid after you bake it, and can actually be sanded if you want--a much better option than anything that stays soft/pliable, and much faster to work with than attempting a cast molding.

Structurally, in this application, it's a suitable material for what it has to do, bcs it's only handling compressive forces, and not much of it at that, given that the hook itself is what the screws are anchored to. The sculpey's only purpose is to take up the extra space between the flat back of the hook, and the curved front of the vespa's leg shield liner to keep the hook from swinging left/right. The real structural components are the two lugs formed on the back of the hook's base, the screws, the fender washers, and the light switch cover, which are all metal except for the hook itself (some sort of molded nylon I beleive). You're most likely to strip the threads out of the plastic lugs than any other forms of failure. If you have the right screws, and don't over-torque them, you'll actually have to yank pretty hard to do that.

The sculpy-to-legshield assembly isn't intrinsically watertight per se. But I don't believe it has to be either, mostly bcs of the geometry. Moisture intrusion there would be fairly minimal. If I get the hankering, I suppose I could bed the assembly with a little silicone, but I'm not particularly concerned.

Thanks ... just checking it out because it looks like a handy little modification. You didn't shape the sculpy and then bake it before putting it on, did you? You used it "as is", correct? I have actually used that clay before ....

That was the nuance that I didn't get into in the first write-up. Pictures would've helped. It was a multi-step process, actually. You form the sculpey onto the hook while it's soft to shape it, and then squeeze it between the hook and the leg shield to get it to take the right shape between the legshield and hook.

But I don't leave it on the scoot that way.

After you're done forming the curve of the leg shield into the little wedge of sculpey, you take the hook/sculpey off the scoot and lay the hook down at your desk. Cut away any excess sculpey that squeezed out, so that the sculpey that remains follows the contour of the hook base nicely. If you have sculpting tools, you can do a pretty clean job, but a knife edge is really all you need to clean the edges up a little.

Then remove the sculpey from the hook and put it on an oven proof surface and bake that sucker by itself for about twenty to thirty minutes. Then re-assemble once it's stiff.

Using the small sheets of plastic that I mentioned in my first post aids in the ease of working with the sculpey so that it doesn't stick to the scooter or the hook base. I recommend cutting the plastic sheet to the shape of the hook base and cut out holes in the sheet for the lugs to pass through. The plastic that you use should be flexible, but not stretchable. I'd recommend the transparency sheets that teachers used to write on when they used their projectors, but nowadays, I wonder if they even make them. In my case, I had some polyethelyne page protectors that were almost stiff enough--passable. I would've liked something just a bit thicker. This gives you a way to slip something flat like a knife blade between the hook base and the sculpey to life the sculpy off of the hook base in one piece very easily. It also allows you to press the sculpey against the scooter's leg shield without having it stick firmly to the legshield. The plastic sheet keeps the sculpey and the legshield separate.

Bake for stiffness, et voila.

It.s Bee-yoo-ti-ful.

Husband, get over here and look at this!