| (Pictures before restoration) | (Pictures during restoration) |
This is my 1938 Moto Scoot scooter restoration project. I bought the unit at an auction in South-Eastern Ontario in the spring of 2000. As you can see in the pictures, it had no engine when I purchased it but I bought it because I had read that some of these scooters had Briggs & Stratton engines in them and of course the price was right. The brass tag was still attached and read Model BCD, Serial 5019. According to a very helpful contact that I made by email, my scooter was probably originally powered by a Lauson engine either Model RLC on the standard version or RSH on the Deluxe model. Apparently the 1939 model scooter was supposedly the first model powered by a Briggs & Stratton engine (Model IS). I made a decision, however, to try to purchase a B&S IS and see if I could install it in this machine. I do prefer to collect and restore B&S engines only.
I
began by stripping the scooter down and scrapping off all the grease and grim. I
removed two pounds of gunk from the machine by the time all the pieces were
apart. I know this because I weighed the stuff before I threw is out (there was
so much of it). When I began to glass bead the body parts I found that the wheel
rims had a coating of white paint on the bottom while the seat/engine cover was
originally painted a royal blue. The remaining frame parts were painted red
under the faded coat of teal blue that covered most of the scooter. This red,
white and blue colour scheme could have evidently been used for the Century
model scooter, which may be denoted by the ‘C’ in the model type BCD. The
‘D’ could stand for Deluxe as well.
