I have always liked the Ape, ever since I saw one donkeys years ago when visiting Lake Garda when I was 15, some 25 years late my wife persuaded me to buy one!
The first one we looked at in April 2021 was MP550 is very good condition, the owner, an Italian man had imported, however this ended up selling for more than I was prepared too pay so the hunt continued.....
A few weeks after the first Ape sold the Italian man got in touch to say he had another Ape still in Italy, this was a blue(ish) 1966 AD1T complete with paperwork and still registered to him. He had bought it years ago as a project but never got round to doing anything with, I was told it was running and needed a few minor bits doing to it (new indicators / brakes / seat covers etc) but in 'good' condition for the year.
I was send some pictures of it in Italy
He said that he would be visiting family in the near future so he would bring it back when he returned, he would also ask a local mechanic to do the brakes. As with all the best made plans, Covid delayed things... so in mid June the Ape was imported...however....
When he tried to start the Ape in Italy it refused to start and they couldn't find out why, the 'mechanic' tried to sort the front brakes only to break the hub and the indicators weren't fixed. The Italian guy was really apologetic and gave me the choice of a slightly newer 400R-E3 Ape, or buy the AD1T at a lower price, a new lower price was agreed and it was delivered to me early July.
The 400R-E3 And my AD1T A list of the major non-working parts!
- It wouldn't start!
Front hub needed replacing along with brake pads etc
Countless lights
The fuel system had a blockage
Horn
The starter handle is broke where it attaches to the engine
After buying a battery and replacing lots of bulbs all the lights worked, I replaced lots of spade connectors with fixed the horn and a bad earth problem I found. I replaced the fuel line as the old one was block. I replaced the spark plug, checked the point and timing, checked the engine wiring which got the engine working to some degree. I now have a working Ape
Out of the original list of faults I need to fix the front brake and the starting handle. In addition I still need to fix the magneto problem.
Regards
James