Reader’s Ride
Submariner engineer, Sam Booth didn’t have the space, the skill, or the finances to build his dream scooter… but that didn’t stop him trying. He tells Rik Bardsley how, thanks to some good friends, his goal was finally achieved.
Submarine engineer Sam Booth gives us the lowdown on his custom… and it only cost him £20 to build, honest!
It looks like a Series 1 but it’s really a Series 2. It started life as a loop and a frame bought by Doug Turner on eBay. Sean Freeman welded it up. Originally it was yellow and black like a bumblebee, not my cup of tea at all. It looked like someone had thrown up on it.
Doug originally had an S-type engine in it and I went to his house to have a go on it – he’s got a private road, about a mile long, like a drag strip. I’d not had a scooter for years; I’d sold everything when I joined the Navy. Previously I’d tried to build a water-cooled 190cc T5; I had all the parts, proper crank, engraved bits, cost about £5000 all in boxes – I sold the lot when I joined up.
Doug put this one up on Facebook – asking £1700 with a standard Li150 engine. I saw it and messaged him, asking him if he was desperate for the cash, as I’d like it, but didn’t have that kind of money all in one go, but I could pay monthly. Doug agreed (cheers pal!) I paid it off over about six months.
Making the most of what you’ve got
Doug brought it round on a trailer and almost instantly, it went black. I couldn’t stand the paint. Bosh… out with the Halfords trade card, it was about £3 a tin.
It cost originally cost about £9 to paint. I sprayed it in the garden, I remember the day I did it, in fact it took me two days in the end and I ended the first day with a bit of a fuzzy head due to the fumes. I was on paternity at the time, my daughter was about a week old, so I had no sleep, as a consequence of fuzzy head and no sleep I ended up throwing up in the house, so that’s why it took me a whole two days. Oh, and I also need to mention that at the time I was living in a flat on the second floor.
I did the stripping of the scooter on the stairs, various bits of drilling in the kitchen while my then girlfriend (now wife) was heavily pregnant with our daughter. I did most of the grinding on the fire escape outside the back door right next to the flat’s gas supply. The scooter lived in the kitchen for about four or five months surrounded by parts and storage was at a premium. Every scooter I’ve had has been matt black, so satin black is a nice change, I’ve gone for the ‘posh’ satin finish now. The satin black was simple, and keeps my submarine influence intact – and it’s cheap. I’d love Dave Dickinson or Colin from Garage Artworks to do the business on this machine, but that’s just not realistic for a lad like me.
Mechanical wonder
The engine was originally built by Martin Peacock (Universal Scooters), I bought a road race crank off a guy in Paris, Vincent Mercier – £100 including postage, bargain. I’ve done everything on the cheap. Even the original kit, which I stupidly bought from India, Harry Barlow took one look at a photo of it and said: “It’s not even worth using as a paperweight.” So I ended up buying a Mugello kit on his recommendation. I was given a clutch, and dad got me a carb.
The exhaust was a 100% genuine Vietnamese copy with Kit Kat foil chrome – that’s now painted black. I built the top end, no porting or anything like that… yet. Everything appeared to be running okay and one day I was coming down the A38 in Plymouth and it started back-firing on me, so I turned round and headed back to my naval base. When I got into Plymouth, I dismantled the whole thing, put it into my car, tail end hanging out of one window, front end out the other and petrol pissing everywhere. My dad’s now got the car – and you can still see the battle scars. While I was on ‘duty’ one night, keep in mind I was still in the Navy, I borrowed the tools from the boat, and put the scoot together on the back of a submarine, I’ve got a pic of the scoot surrounded by submarines, one of them is the sub that sank the Belgrano. On ‘duty’ means I was looking after the engine room of a nuclear sub. As a 25-year-old bloke I’m sat there in charge of a nuclear reactor, 4am in the morning and it’s like what you see on the Simpsons with all those buttons, that’s exactly what it’s like, 100%. So, basically, in between shifts (your honour) I was rebuilding my scoot. It only took me about an hour to get the engine and the forks back in.
So, back between shifts, I’ve got head and hands deep into the Lambretta. As I said, I thought that maybe I had an air leak. I stripped the top end down and bought some books on tuning. I took the engine into the garage on the naval base and started Dremelling it all out, even the ports. I thought, it can’t be that hard, can
it? I’d watched some videos on how to do it, rang Scooterotica for their advice and did all the grinding, polishing and the like, and put it all back together… then it broke down again.
This time I thought, I don’t know what to do here. I haven’t got the spare time to sort it out again. So I rang the closest scooter shop owned by a guy called Simon Brace (B-Race Tuning). Well, he took one look at the exhaust and engine and went mental at me: “That is a load of Vietnamese shite!” He ended up rebuilding it for me. The upside was, because he’s ex-Army, he did everything for a really keen price knowing I was due to leave the Navy soon after eight years. He kept the bills down to a pure minimum, at one time he only charged me for parts. I can’t thank him enough. There were a couple of bits here and there, I bought another stator off him, so that was another few quid, but all told, because of a couple of problems with the stator and flywheel it came to about £500, but that’s still dirt cheap. It took about eight months, but as he explained to me: “I’ve got one scooter here that will pay me a proper wage or yours that’ll find me a few quid at mate’s-rates” and I thought, yeah, well... fair’s-fair!
In the meantime, I’d now left the Navy and come back up here. I had to go and collect it from deep down south. I borrowed a trailer off Doug Turner (again), eight hours there (with the baby too) and another eight hours to get back. When we set off, I didn’t realise the scoot had a full tank of petrol. Unfortunately, one of the straps came off on the way, by the time I got home, there was no petrol and no paint on one side of the scooter. Bugger. It had stripped the lot and wrecked the paint and seat. I couldn’t believe it.
Twenty quid please mate…
It all had to be repainted, it cost me about £12 this time because I had to buy primer as well. So I resprayed it. The speedo was such a waste of time and space I had the headset welded up by Damian Wass of Chequered Past Scooters, that cost about £20 and he made the brass grips for me too. He only charged me for the material, as he said he wasn’t an engineer, he’d knock them up and we’d see how they look. I think they’re great, especially for £20! He sold me the disc brake and fitted it. You can spend thousands on scoots – and to my mind, there isn’t all those thousands pounds worth of difference, they still break down. Keeping it clean is easy now. Scooter looking grubby? Out with Halfords finest black spray!
I went round to see my old boss (Chief Stoker Rimmington) and his wife, she embroiders T-shirts for charities. I saw these and I thought aye, aye. So I said… “Donna, do you fancy embroidering a seat?” She said: “Yeah, okay pop it in when you have it with you.” So I took the seat off and half an hour later, she’d re-covered my seat for me. So Donna Rimmington, big thank you... and she didn’t want any cash either. She just wouldn’t take the money. I ended up shoving it through the letterbox and running off. To be honest, there have been loads of good people helping me, donating bits-n-bats here and there. The wheels, they were free. Doug’s been a massive help, he gave me the suspension, the original fuel tank, plus plenty of advice and contacts. We’ve done some trading too. He’s had the drum brake off it.
The flywheel cover, now that’s an interesting custom part. The guy who made it is called Pete Berry of Bespoke Laser Cutting, he used to be the treasurer for Salford Knights. Mad northern souler. The custom flywheel came about when I was round at his one day and I noticed that he engraved boxes, made name things for bedroom doors and the like, laser
I borrowed the tools from the boat, and put the scoot together on the back of a submarine, I’ve got a pic of the scoot surrounded by submarines, one of them is the sub that sank the Belgrano.
engraving tiles, that kind of stuff. I asked if he could knock up a flywheel cover. “Dunno, never done one before, let’s give it a go,” he said. So I pushed the matter and said: “Could you do it out of brass?” The answer was: “No, but we could do it out of a bronze plated vinyl type material.” He couldn’t cut metal on this particular machine, so he cut me one out of MDF to make sure it fit before we committed to the final thing. I took that home, marked it up and he cut the final cover. And guess what it cost me? The same as everything else, £20!
Everyone just says £20, it’s one of those easy notes, the next one up is a fifty and who carries those about in scootering? I’ve been trying to convince him to go and do more of this type of stuff for people. I’m pretty sure there’s a business there, for instance the spare wheel cover is from Mel’s Weld and they are charging about £60-£70 for these spare wheel bits, I said “Pete, buy the metal and do it yourself as a business.” He can cut up to 3mm metal, so we need to get him some orders, so he can start knocking stuff out and making himself some money. Then he can get his scooter back where it belongs (I’m going to Pete soon and will report back – Rik).
The anchor is from HMS Talent. Originally I’d been on HMS Tireless – greatest submarine in the world, I loved it. It was the first submarine I joined, 18 years old, I went all over the world, and we went looking for the missing Malaysian plane, all over the place. It was fantastic. Then I joined Talent, which was alright, I suppose. It was on Talent that I noticed this big brass anchor on the wall, I had a look on eBay, and I saw exactly the same one, it was about £15... I thought, only £15? But then again, it could be called a tax rebate? So I thought that anchor’s been bought with taxpayer’s money… and I’m a taxpayer… so I’ll have some of that, so it came off the wall onto my sparewheel cover and nobody’s noticed. My last ever duty, my last ever day in the Navy and the anchor came home… a parting gift.
I’d like to thank Doug Turner, Simon Brace, Donna Rimmington, my wife Charlotte who’s not a fan of my scooter but puts up with me messing in the garden we all do when its nine at night and you get that OH YEAH I FORGOT! And my best mate aka my dad Steve who got me into the scene in the first place. Words & Photographs: Rik Bardsley