Scooter troubles

So, I was going home on Friday, and there was this change in sound, and I knew my scooter had something wrong with it. A good friend helped me get it home by putting it in his truck.

So, when I started taking it apart, I found that the spark plug was out of the cylinder.

I took a before picture so that I could attempt to hook up the hoses correctly.

Sorry about no "action" shots, seeing the valves/cam/cam chain and everything is pretty cool. My hands were pretty greasey whenever it would have been a good idea to take a picture.

I adjusted the valve clearance while I was in there. (where do you measure! (between the valve stem and the rocker arms)). I also reset the cam chain adjuster (just to see how it works). My cam chain adjuster is "automatic" because it uses a spring to move a ratcheting piece against the cam chain plate.

I took off the exhaust (pain in the ass!) and just finished painting it with some bbq paint after sanding away (most) of the rust (no more rust for meeeeee (hopefully)).

Interesting to figure out where top dead center is, the spark plug is not at the top of the cylinder, so you can't just stick something (chopstick?) into the hole to figure it out. Turns out there is a marking on a flywheel like piece that has a "T" which is evidently for when you are checking timing stuff. I also verified it by reasoning through the sequence of valve opening/closing.

So, the bad news:

One or both of the following threads are done for:

the sparkplug (easy, just buy a new one)

the sparkplug hole (hard, must tap the hole for larger threads and install inserts)

If the sparkplug hole threads are dead, then I am hoping that I can install a helicoil without taking the engine block out (suggestion is fabric jammed into the cylinder through the hole, some grease to catch chips, then heavily greased tap to also catch chips).

Any of the spark plug work is going to have to wait until after the 4th of July. I might order a battery also, my current one has been dead since at least last summer. Stupid walmart doesn't carry my sparkplug nor my battery.

Scooter electrical problems

So I bought that charger for the scooter. It worked great.

I go outside. Turn key. Turn master cut off switch to on. Nothing.

Open up battery compartment. Everything looks good. Look underneath and remember two wires that were not connected to each other or anything else (they are terminated with those metal circular plates with a hole in it). I pull out the battery holder piece, and there they are. One seems to go from the battery post to... nowhere? The other from the bowels of the machine to ... nowhere.

Using my engineering instinct, I boldly connected the two parts going nowhere. Hey, the colors matched. Nothing.

Turned on the switches and touched the two ends ... spark and lights coming on!

Off switches, off to find a bolt and a nut. I found a bolt with a wingnut . The bolt had a square part of the shaft so that it would not turn when inserted into a square hole. I did not have a square hole, but I did have duct tape. So I made a duct tape spacer, put on the two wire ends, and another duct tape spacer for good measure.

Everything worked great after I got it re-assembled. My fuel gauge wasn't acting weird and my lights flash now.

Uneventful ride to work. The new idle is so quiet, I had to rev the engine at stop lights to prove that it was still on.

Scooter tweaking

I noticed that my turn signal light was solid today on the way to work. When I got to work, I found out that no light bulbs are out. I think I either have a bad flasher or a discharged battery. I lean toward the battery being the problem and I am going to try and buy a charger for the battery tonight.

Since I was looking at the scooter, I wanted to figure out how to change my idle setting. I could see this little screw, but it was tucked away in a fairly hard to get to location.


I got a screw driver bit and put it in a small socket. I turned the screw with that, and promptly dropped the screw driver bit. I couldn't find it. I shook the moped. I leaned it. I used a big powerful magnet. Nothing.

I finally decided to take off the seat. My sockets weren't deep enough, so I couldn't get it off. I decided, well, at least I can check out the battery. I opened up a compartment in the seat looking for it. I did not find the battery, instead, I found this:



My little idle adjustment screw! Outside I went and made it run at much lower rpm's at idle, it still starts, so I didn't bring it down too low. For some context, here is a zoomed out picture.



Since the battery wasn't where I thought it was, I looked around a bit more.


there it is!

Flashing blue lights in my mirror

I got pulled over by a mis-informed cop for driving an unlicensed scooter.
Turns out I was legal.

So I tried to complain and this was their response. (I used two browsers... its on their end)


"""
Microsoft VBScript runtime error '800a01ad'
ActiveX component can't create object: 'CDONTS.NewMail'
/web5-2/communication/ofcemail.asp, line 49
"""


and still broken after the vacation.

Oil Change and Gear Oil Change

The scooter was due for its first oil and gear oil change with the mileage at 191.4. I really didn't know what engine oil to use, because I got 3 different answers from 3 different sources, 2 were the manual itself (15w-40,10w-30,5w-50). I decided on 5W-30 and used that.

The engine oil was fairly uneventful, the oil was pretty dirty though. I found small shavings in the oil drain plug. The plug is spring-loaded, so it was hard to get started when it was covered in oil. There is a small screen that I also cleaned.

The gear oil drainage bolt was really hard to get off. A sticker on the gear box said to use GL-3 oil. Online, I found that I was supposed to use 85w-140. I had bought GL-5 85w-140 gear oil at walmart. A quick check online later, I found that I might be able to use the GL-5 its supposed to be for heavier duty applications and also can dissolve bronze gears?! so I am taking a small risk. Hopefully my transmission does not corrode itself?

I have to take the oil to a waste oil place, I don't really know where I am supposed to take it. I am going to stop in on an oil change place and ask them.

Old oil = teh dirty. New oil = nice.

I'll tell you how it rides and take pictures next time I change the oil.

Second Fill up

I filled up the scooter for the second time since I bought it today.

based on my first calculation, it gets 100.478 mpg. I was driving fairly aggressively (or so I thought, it doesn't have much excess power...)

I'll take more data points to get a more accurate mpg for the vehicle.

Scooter Brake Saga

I need to do my first oil change soon on my scooter. The person I bought it from said to do it at 100 miles. The user manual says to do it at 300 km (186.4 ish miles). The user manual, dude at the shop, and sticker on the scooter all say to use different engine oil. I am going to do more research for which one I should really use.

In checking out where everything was and making sure that I could do the oil change, I decided to locate a few things and fix the one of the nagging problems that the scooter has (squeaky front brake due to me). I found the idle adjustment screw, I thought I heard it idling a bit lean, but that may be a good thing. In the winter I think I will have to change the idle setting.

I also found out where to stiffen up the rear brakes. Now the rear brakes work when you push it a small distance, instead of having to hold it down onto the handle.

My front brakes started squeaking after I tried to make them stop rubbing when the brakes were off. On Sunday, I pushed on the brake when the disk was not in the calipers. This moved the piston forward and I could not get it to go back. I had to bleed the brake fluid from the brake system and figure out how it all worked.

In the end, I bought new brake fluid and refilled the front brake reservoir, and got the air bubbles out of the lines (I think) (side note: this may be an excuse to get that brake vacuum pump that I have always wanted). One screw holding the brake fluid in was so tight that I bent my screwdriver and stripped the screw trying to get it out. I had to use my dremel to cut a slot into the screw and use a very large flat head screwdriver to get it out. To cut the slot properly, I had to cut a bit into the casing. blah.

off to the store to get a new screw...

Scooter update

I think I fixed one of the problems with the scooter. The front brake disk was rubbing against the front brake caliper.

I took off the wheel and put it back on (correctly, it seems). It didn't rub as much (as in, not at all). I maybe have to take it off again and file the caliper a bit. I think the right answer is to get a different sized spacer between the wheel and caliper (so anyone that wants to buy me a lathe, now is a good time). I might be able to file the current spacer.

Its not really past the wear in period, but having the brake disk abrade the brake caliper just seems wrong.

The scooter is faster with the fix, supposedly I was at 40 mph. I want to calibrate the speedometer, I am not sure that it is accurate.

Does anyone have a INS/GPS system that might help me out?

New Moped

I bought a new moped.


I hope it doesn't get stolen.

It is a four stroke, so I will have to change the oil every once in a while. It is a lot quieter, as the exhaust seems to be properly attached to the engine this time...

I think I have to fix the front brake, could just be that it is not broken in. I'll try and keep a log of the mpg.

Moped Stolen

My moped was stolen yesterday between 4:30 pm and 10:30 pm.