Post by lykos23 on Jun 5, 2013 16:01:18 GMT -5
After already having to repeat myself over and over again, and hijacking Kaymo's thread about the Zook, I figured I would make a post dedicated to it.
So here it is!
For those of you that don't know, the Honda Zook is an extremely rare small scooter produced only during the year 1990, and exclusively in Japan.
I found this on craigslist; some guy was asking $400 for a "used scooter" without pictures. Through some emailing back and forth the guy finally sent me some dark pictures of the thing, and he said he was interested in trading it for a guitar - "lucky me!" I thought, because I owned five guitars, and I had an extra guitar I had planned on giving my little brother for christmas which I considered "tradeable". As desperate as I was I relented on the guy's demand that I give him $50 for gas to deliver the scooter, so after the next few days the guy finally showed up with the scooter(s). He pulled the Zook out of his truck and I thought it was the most beautiful thing; "a running scooter!" I thought.
Right after he pulled the Zook out of the back of his truck, he pulled this small mini-bike sort of thing from his back seat and he said "and you said you like tinkering, so what do you think of this DiBlasi?" as he proceeded to demonstrate its folding action. "Perfect!" I thought; "a small scooter I could bring with me to Michigan", at the time, I thought...
So I brought this guy into my house to show him my guitars. I let him plug in my bass guitar, a special guitar I had that belonged to Rick Springfield, my ratfink electric, and then I showed him the guitar still in its box which I had planned on giving to my little brother. I thought that Rick Springfield's guitar would be enough, but he demanded, and I mean demanded, that I give him the bass guitar, rick springfield's guitar, my broken guitar, AND the guitar in its box for both the DiBlasi and the Zook. As desperate as I was... I relented, again. Rick's guitar was busted up, so I figured it was worth $400, the guitar in the box cost me $200, the bass was slightly broken but I didn't tell him that, and my broken guitar was picked up for $20 at a garage sale. In my head it was a steal. Again, I thought.
So the deal went on and I figured he was going in his truck to get the titles for the scooters... Well, he instead drove off in a hurry, shall we say. At the time I didn't even know the importance of a title and I thought I could just drive these things in the road; I see kids with their minibikes do it all the time; well apparently that's illegal to do.
It was about this time that my mother finally got out of the shower as I proudly showed off my newly acquired scooters... "WHAT THE @#(# IS THAT THING?!" she said. "And where are your guitars?!" The guitars that once decorated my room were missing in her eyes. I explained what happened and how I had happily acquired two supposedly working scooters. She asked for the guy's name so she could call the cops.
I didn't know the guy's name, so I let my mother stew in her anger and disappointment while I tried to start the scooters with no previous knowledge of anything with a motor in my life. I never operated a gas mower before this, I never worked on cars, and I didn't have the slightest clue what a "CVT" even was. Lucky for me, I have asperger's and that makes me learn pretty quickly.
Well, after days of that, I had no luck in starting either scooter. I researched, and researched, and researched, I couldn't even find information on the Honda Zook anywhere! It was only with my grandfather's hint one day where he saw me furiously kicking the Zook that he said "Isn't there supposed to be una filtro adentro?" (he speaks spanglish) as he pointed to the gaping hole on the carb. That was the turning point in my zook repair. I sprayed a bit of starting fluid in the newly identified "carburetor" and covered the hole with a thick rag to act as a filter - It started right up! Ever since then I've had a perfectly fine running Zook, as long as I put some kind of filter of sorts.
After this small success I called up the DMV and ran a check on the VIN number, and apparently the zook had never been titled. According to the DMV the scooter did not exist, nor did it qualify to drive on the roads of Illinois. Days of work, all for nothing. Well, I said screw it and drove the thing anyway. For the next month or two it was my main mode of transportation to the store a few blocks away. Up until I got my Peace Sports 50.
So far all I had to do to get the thing running consistently was to change the oils, gas, and sparkplug.
Now I'm just trying to sell this cursed thing.
Anybody know where I could get a 24-25mm air filter for it? Right now I'm using the sponge from my old airbox.
So here it is!
For those of you that don't know, the Honda Zook is an extremely rare small scooter produced only during the year 1990, and exclusively in Japan.
I found this on craigslist; some guy was asking $400 for a "used scooter" without pictures. Through some emailing back and forth the guy finally sent me some dark pictures of the thing, and he said he was interested in trading it for a guitar - "lucky me!" I thought, because I owned five guitars, and I had an extra guitar I had planned on giving my little brother for christmas which I considered "tradeable". As desperate as I was I relented on the guy's demand that I give him $50 for gas to deliver the scooter, so after the next few days the guy finally showed up with the scooter(s). He pulled the Zook out of his truck and I thought it was the most beautiful thing; "a running scooter!" I thought.
Right after he pulled the Zook out of the back of his truck, he pulled this small mini-bike sort of thing from his back seat and he said "and you said you like tinkering, so what do you think of this DiBlasi?" as he proceeded to demonstrate its folding action. "Perfect!" I thought; "a small scooter I could bring with me to Michigan", at the time, I thought...
So I brought this guy into my house to show him my guitars. I let him plug in my bass guitar, a special guitar I had that belonged to Rick Springfield, my ratfink electric, and then I showed him the guitar still in its box which I had planned on giving to my little brother. I thought that Rick Springfield's guitar would be enough, but he demanded, and I mean demanded, that I give him the bass guitar, rick springfield's guitar, my broken guitar, AND the guitar in its box for both the DiBlasi and the Zook. As desperate as I was... I relented, again. Rick's guitar was busted up, so I figured it was worth $400, the guitar in the box cost me $200, the bass was slightly broken but I didn't tell him that, and my broken guitar was picked up for $20 at a garage sale. In my head it was a steal. Again, I thought.
So the deal went on and I figured he was going in his truck to get the titles for the scooters... Well, he instead drove off in a hurry, shall we say. At the time I didn't even know the importance of a title and I thought I could just drive these things in the road; I see kids with their minibikes do it all the time; well apparently that's illegal to do.
It was about this time that my mother finally got out of the shower as I proudly showed off my newly acquired scooters... "WHAT THE @#(# IS THAT THING?!" she said. "And where are your guitars?!" The guitars that once decorated my room were missing in her eyes. I explained what happened and how I had happily acquired two supposedly working scooters. She asked for the guy's name so she could call the cops.
I didn't know the guy's name, so I let my mother stew in her anger and disappointment while I tried to start the scooters with no previous knowledge of anything with a motor in my life. I never operated a gas mower before this, I never worked on cars, and I didn't have the slightest clue what a "CVT" even was. Lucky for me, I have asperger's and that makes me learn pretty quickly.
Well, after days of that, I had no luck in starting either scooter. I researched, and researched, and researched, I couldn't even find information on the Honda Zook anywhere! It was only with my grandfather's hint one day where he saw me furiously kicking the Zook that he said "Isn't there supposed to be una filtro adentro?" (he speaks spanglish) as he pointed to the gaping hole on the carb. That was the turning point in my zook repair. I sprayed a bit of starting fluid in the newly identified "carburetor" and covered the hole with a thick rag to act as a filter - It started right up! Ever since then I've had a perfectly fine running Zook, as long as I put some kind of filter of sorts.
After this small success I called up the DMV and ran a check on the VIN number, and apparently the zook had never been titled. According to the DMV the scooter did not exist, nor did it qualify to drive on the roads of Illinois.
Days of work, all for nothing. Well, I said screw it and drove the thing anyway. For the next month or two it was my main mode of transportation to the store a few blocks away. Up until I got my Peace Sports 50. So far all I had to do to get the thing running consistently was to change the oils, gas, and sparkplug.
Now I'm just trying to sell this cursed thing.
Anybody know where I could get a 24-25mm air filter for it? Right now I'm using the sponge from my old airbox.
Main Jet
;D