Last minute tinkering (Tim)

One more day to go. 24 hours and still so much to do
I had great plans to do 'preventative maintenance' on the scooter this morning - but to be perfectly honest I was a little reluctant to mess - "if it aint broke, dont fix it".  Why would I want to tighten perfectly working cables and risk over doing it and having something snap on me?  How much more oil can i put in the the gearbox since last weekend?

I have a confession to make - and Im not proud of myself - but it does show how fabulously reliable the Vespa is - I haven't even looked at the spark plug since the engine rebuild!  Again, up until this point Ive had no reason to think I should, it has been running so well.   I'm always reluctant to tempt fate, but I thought I ought to just check the spark plug before setting off on this long journey - it could be an indication of the health of the engine.  As it happens its a perfect dry 'chocolate brown' - Just as Haynes says it should be - so that pleased me.  Clearly the scooter is blowing a fair amount of smoke out the exhaust - everything around the rear wheel is sooty - but its a dry dusty soot that dusts off, not an oily soot that sticks to everything - so again I'm hoping this is a good sign.
As I fiddled around preparing things, I found myself drawn to polishing!  Ive never polished a vehicle in my life!  but i figured that a coat of turtle wax might help shed some rain if we get unlucky (im still worried about getting the bike wet and starting all that rusting process over again)

Ive filled the toolbox to its limit - 2 x 1lt bottles of 2stroke oil, 2 x 1200 10mm security chains and padlocks, 1x toolkit roll, A hi-viz bib, and a small torch.  This means i now have nowhere to store the all in one rainsuit - I guess this will have to pack onto a rack - might be useful to have it easily accessible anyway.

And so what else to do?  check tyre pressures. pack bags. load bike.  Go!