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Post by scooter on Mar 31, 2015 21:12:52 GMT -5
It's vibration unless they are stripped. Have you put lock washers on them? Nope, never had any washers on them when I took them out of the 50cc engine when I did my BBK upgrade. They tighten up nice whenever I do tighten them, but every now and then when I take the shroud off to check stuff I find them hand loose. I put lock washers on everything. They should keep your bolts from coming loose. Bolt, lock washer, washer... same for nuts. washer, lock washer, nut. |
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Post by scooter on Mar 31, 2015 16:29:38 GMT -5
BTW I heard Dr Richard Carman has passed away, from the scooterdoc forum. Y'all might want to stop by if you knew him. |
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Post by scooter on Mar 31, 2015 16:27:01 GMT -5
I don't, but it couldn't hurt to do it when you check your valve lash. I check them every time I check my valves. I just give them a little push to see if they are still as tight as they were, mine have never come loose though, but results may vary! The two bolts on the side of my engine keep coming loose though, and I don't understand why. Every time I check them they are ready to unscrew by hand practically. It's vibration unless they are stripped. Have you put lock washers on them? |
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Post by scooter on Mar 31, 2015 16:22:38 GMT -5
Scooter, I've never encountered this phenomenon. After a long high-speed run, on a hot day, both my tires get pretty hot; too hot to comfortably hang onto with a bare hand, but it sounds like your rear is getting TOO hot. Seems like the factory would not design in a feature that could lead to a tire failure, but it does concern me. I would try making a simple sheet-metal "heat-shield" large enough to block the exhaust header from the tire (maybe several inches above and below the pipe" to deflect the air from blowing directly onto the tire, just for safety. I've never heard of this condition, and never heard of a tire blowing from exhaust heat, but still, it's something I would try to remedy, just for "peace of mind"... A simple little "paddle" of aluminum might add thousands of miles to the tire's life. Just my thoughts, Leo in Texas Thanks. I made a small heat shield for the header and it helps some. Then I switched mufflers with the other scoot and that didn't help. I upped the jet from a 110 to a 125 and that didn't help. I then switched carbs with the other scoot and that helped more, but still hot. I think the second carb has a 115 or a 120 jet in it. I am going to wrap the second exhaust like the first one, put on the heat shield, and go get some metal to make a muffler shield with. I have seen this issue from others online but no solutions. Thanks for your input. |
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Post by scooter on Mar 30, 2015 21:44:02 GMT -5
With the trailer wheel all the way I can't get any significant load behind the trailer axle to cause sway. The geometry is more like a fifth wheel trailer. When the wheel was farther forward like the first iteration of the trailer I did get tail wagging, generally at speeds in excess of 65 MPH or pushing too hard into curves -- a really exciting terrifying experience when surrounded by rush hour traffic or in a sharp curve with oncoming traffic. Great job! Have a bone on me too! I like to see people doing different things with their scooters. |
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Post by scooter on Mar 30, 2015 21:38:46 GMT -5
i'm not an engineer so i don't completely understand how you make it work either. seems like the hard part is figuring out how to get it to shift when you want to turn so you aren't fighting it through every turn. then the next thing i have a hard time understanding is if you can get it to shift when you lean into a turn... how do you get it to shift the other direction if you are falling over. seems like it might think you leaning into a turn, no? lol, i have no idea how you make it work but plenty of people smarter than me. would love to see a drawing and read how you would make it work. The bike is not solidly fixed to the gyro cages so that the bike will not fight the gyro torque when leaning into turns or when the bike gets tilted forward or backward as when going up or down an incline. Without the gyro cages locked, the bike could tip all the way over. But bikes won't do that normally in a turn unless they have leaned too far. And the cages are not locked until the bike slows down to a certain speed. If the bike happens to get that slow and somehow still be leaned, it is likely that the system will drive the locked cages around in an attempt to torque the bike up and set it vertical. The gyro system is meant to keep the bike upright when going slow or stopped since you can't put feet down to stabilize the bike. It is not a magic machine to keep you from tipping all the way over when moving above a certain speed. And it may or may not have enough gyro energy and torque to set the bike up with a rider in it with it lying all the way over on its side. But it does seem to have enough to keep it from going all the way over when it gets its wheels jerked sideways...... so maybe it might be able to do that. It really doesn't take a whole lot to keep the bike balanced once it is pretty close to already being upright. Imagine the crazy slow turns you could do on a bike like that!  |
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Post by scooter on Mar 30, 2015 15:50:35 GMT -5
It was a long cold winter in NE Ohio this year so I redid the TMAX trailer to keep from getting cabin fever. s1359.photobucket.com/user/42nulldevice42/media/Hitch%20and%20Trailer%20Modifications/DSCN0231.JPGnew_zpsuy2hjtmn.jpg.htmlI relocated and reoriented the hitch to take the hitch off the scooter axle, moved the wheel all the way back and lowered the box as low as I could at the wheel which improved towing a lot. This lowered the center of gravity of the trailer is much closer to the line from the hitch connection to the real wheel pavement contact. The trailer no longer acts like a badly behaved, frightened passenger. Very nice, nulldevice! Can a scooter trailer get crazy on you like a regular trailer where it starts jerking the rear end around when loaded too much to the rear? |
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Post by scooter on Mar 28, 2015 20:13:57 GMT -5
I'm sure it's a great ride! Speaking of swingarms, I took the muffler off of one of my scoots, to try on the other one, and I see the swingarm is dangling so I look in the bearing hole and there's no bearing in it! I rode that thing for a month or two at speeds up to 75mph with that arm riding on the axle.  You just prove that major mechanical failure is rare, and if you don't know there's a problem there's no consequence whatsoever! Haha, jk, but yeah that's scary. (Correction, the engine case and muffler were holding the swingarm in place) Yeah! Good thing I didn't know about it or I might have wrecked! HAHAHA! |
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Post by scooter on Mar 28, 2015 20:05:08 GMT -5
If it cracks again scooter,,I will let him rip my BBK scoot around town for an hour,,now thats a good deal  I'm sure it's a great ride! Speaking of swingarms, I took the muffler off of one of my scoots, to try on the other one, and I see the swingarm is dangling so I look in the bearing hole and there's no bearing in it! I rode that thing for a month or two at speeds up to 75mph with that arm being supported by the engine case and muffler. |
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Post by scooter on Mar 28, 2015 14:09:39 GMT -5
How do you guys normally arrange test drives with a private seller? Since I'm also trying to sell my scooter, I was thinking of I take their car keys and a picture of their license and they can take it for a ride. What do you think? The shop I bought it from, also offered to let me do the sale/test-drive there. My method is "You give me the money and if you drop it you own it.", but Rocky brought up some liability issues too. That's something to think about. |
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Post by scooter on Mar 28, 2015 14:02:04 GMT -5
Im looking for a decent set of ear buds that would fit under my helmet so I can listen to my Zune player while riding,,anybody have any ideas? No I don't want speakers on my scoot...lol Please Please Please, let's try to keep these threads on track, and start new threads for different subjects. Reading many of the threads here, you start with some decent feedback in the responses, then it devolves into a conversation between two of the responders, and the conversation has nothing to do with the OP's request. Let's all try to keep things just a bit more organized, please. Sorry, Jerry. Will do. |
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Post by scooter on Mar 28, 2015 13:56:53 GMT -5
Im looking for a decent set of ear buds that would fit under my helmet so I can listen to my Zune player while riding,,anybody have any ideas? No I don't want speakers on my scoot...lol I have a cheap set that would work. Just a typical cheap set with rubber ear canal inserts. My helmet has small speakers mounted inside of each side of the chin strap. It's funny, you'd think hearing would be an important part of a helmet design but I can't hear squat inside of mine, music or not. That's when the modular flip up is handy. I have speakers on my bike but you have to blast them to hear anything from inside the helmet. That's what I miss about my old 3/4 helmet with a flip up shield. It had removable ear pads which, when removed, let in cool air and made hearing much better while still keeping wind noise to a minimum. Peripheral vision was better too. No chin protection though. I left it with the insurance adjuster after my wreck and they gave me back the cost of it. |
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Post by scooter on Mar 28, 2015 13:46:27 GMT -5
I'm not an electrical guru but I'd like to see you get your scooter fixed. Here's a chart of wire sizes by amperage. Try to figure out, perhaps by googling, or looking on ebay, how many amps the things you are wiring need. The bigger the better. Too big is okay. Too small can be dangerous. i looked earlier but didn't find the answer. i'll research some more. About a week ago I finished my project of upgrading to an 11-pole stator and R/R. It appeared 16 gauge was the factory standard for the wires. However, I went with a forurm member's advice and used 18 gauge wire for my high output stator wires. thx. do you mean 14 gauge? from the little research i did earlier i thought the lower number the more amps it can handle, or am i misinformed? Bigger diameter is better. It seems silly but the bigger the wire is the smaller the gauge number is.  I don't know why the sizing is backwards. It may mean the number of wires of a certain length that equal a certain weight, the number of wires that will fit in a certain diameter, or the number of dies a "0" sized wire must be drawn through to reach the smaller diameter. This backwardness is similar to the measure of gun barrels, where the gauge represents the number of spherical pellets of a given size that equal one pound. i.e. a lead ball that fits in a 12 gauge gun barrel is 1/12th of one pound. |
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Post by scooter on Mar 27, 2015 20:38:06 GMT -5
i've been struggling to fix my scooter for a few weeks. seems like every time i take it apart i find new problems and i still haven't solved the original issue. recently the scooter became impossible to tune. found an air leak, fixed that but it didn't solve my problem. replaced the ignition coil and spark plug. also cleaned carb and changed to a smaller jet (old plug was a bit dark). no use, still same symptoms. well, for months my scoot has symptoms of a weak/dead battery but if i let off the starter for a second then it will start perfectly fine. didn't realize i might have loose connections or burnt wires until today. found one of tvnacman's old posts about burnt wires. after reading that i believe my starting issue has caused problems to other wires giving me a weak and/or sporadic spark. i don't want to order a whole new wire harness so i'm wondering what gauge wire i should buy and can i use the same gauge to replace any/all bad wires i find? is the battery wire 16 gauge? can i use 16 gauge on everything? I'm not an electrical guru but I'd like to see you get your scooter fixed. Here's a chart of wire sizes by amperage. Try to figure out, perhaps by googling, or looking on ebay, how many amps the things you are wiring need. The bigger the better. Too big is okay. Too small can be dangerous. |
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Post by scooter on Mar 27, 2015 20:32:20 GMT -5
If your anywhere around Jersey I will weld it up for you for free...and guarantee it wont crack in the same spot again. ... or your money back. |
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