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Post by scooter on Oct 26, 2014 11:49:57 GMT -5
On some of these bikes, when you run at wide open throttle, you will have very little or no vacuum. I have heard this before. How is this possible. One would assume the engine would have more vacuum as the engine revs higher. What's going on there? (Edit: Thank you for your replies. I also found this page www.linnbenton.edu/auto/perform/vacuum.html helpful. It mentions a key thing about the system. When the throttle is closed, the vacuum is working against a closed throttle plate, essentially making a vacuum in a closed chamber, but when the throttle is open, especially wide open, there is a giant 30mm hole in our "chamber". There is little to hold the vacuum in any more at this point, so even if it's sucking ten times the amount of air, there's little to hold it for the vacuum gauge to read. Duh.  This would explain why so many of us have problems running at wide open throttle, with our vacuum powered fuel pumps, where the engine is starved for fuel. The engine literally runs out of gas. It's very important to have a good working pump and no vacuum leaks.) |
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Post by scooter on Oct 26, 2014 11:24:26 GMT -5
Someone mentioned possibly having an overheating problem. Do these engines have something on them that shuts off the engine of it reaches a particular temperature? Yes. A melting point.   |
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Post by scooter on Oct 26, 2014 9:50:08 GMT -5
A quick edit of the outing my girl and I had to one of our favorite spots yesterday. More to come! Very nice, Captain. It's relaxing to watch with the music.  |
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Post by scooter on Oct 25, 2014 18:05:30 GMT -5
Does anyone know how to sell a scooter? What do customers want to hear? How do you turn a call into a sale? What do you say in your ads? I am selling a scooter on craigslist. So far I've had only a few calls. They sound excited and interested and then never even show up to look at the scooter. How you sell? What key words do you use? What's your selling style? What are some things you should and should not say? What are some signs that you have a good potential buyer on the line as opposed to a time wasting question asker? I need real experienced sales advice.
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Post by scooter on Oct 25, 2014 16:17:55 GMT -5
Thanks guys for all the info, it looks like my best option is taping or rethreading. Do you think lowes would sell anything like this? What size do you want to make your threads? For instance, homedepot.com has a 3/8-16 tap for 5 dollars. Add in a few more dollars for a drill. You can get a chart that shows you what drill you need. Let's say you had a 1/4" bolt in a hole and it stripped. The hole should be close to 1/4" (.250) at this point. Look at what tap uses a hole about that size. In this case, a 5/16-18 would be a good choice. It uses a size "F" (.257) drill. In aluminum, a .250 hole would be fine for this tap and you would not even need to drill it out. If you do not know how to use a tap, you should watch some videos. You can use an adjustable wrench to turn the tap but a tap handle is nicer. If anything is unclear just ask and I'll help you. If I am over-explaining then sorry in advance. use some tapping fluid, wd40 or something as a lube. even vegetable or motor oil should work in a pinch.  Here is a metric tap chart.  An m5 has an outside diameter of 5mm. If your bolt stripped and left you with a 5mm hole, the nearest drill size is a 5mm drilled hole for an m6X1 tap. If the hole is out of round or oversized or otherwise damaged, you might want to upsize to an m8. Acehardware.com has a metric tap and die set for 15 and 20 dollars. Ebay has a set with a handle for 8 dollars and free shipping. They also have an m8 helicoil kit for 15 dollars. a drill bit is another 3 or 4 dollars. for later use, you can often find big nice 115 piece drill sets on sites like msc. they have one for about 100 dollars plus 25% off. I used to see them on special for $20, many years ago. |
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Post by scooter on Oct 25, 2014 8:49:21 GMT -5
scooter Wile those are awesome ideas, I have to wonder if changing your exhaust on the fly like that wouldn't mess with how your engine runs in either direction, rich or lean. Little changes on these little engines have big effects on how the run and how they have to be tuned. That's a valid concern. When I took off the end of my pipe, changing from a tiny 1/2" hole to a big 4" hole, I didn't notice any difference in power or function. I figure if I ran it with the mixture set up for the big hole then it would run rich with the small hole. I think that's right. I heard richer is okay. Definitely something to consider. |
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Post by scooter on Oct 24, 2014 23:14:28 GMT -5
way cool now get us a vid of it running This short vid really doesn't do it justice. It's much deeper in person. The mic on my phone isn't the best at picking up deep tones. If you are standing next to it it shakes your chest when you hit the gas. HAHAHA! NICE! ![]() |
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Post by scooter on Oct 24, 2014 22:43:18 GMT -5
Scooter, bet you would get a deeper tone of you enlarged the exit hole. Just 1/4 inch larger would make a big difference. As for the original xmas can idea..the heck with that. I would rather drive around with an open head vs putting a can on my exhaust. Absolutely. I still may use that other variator for a nicer look. I also had fun "silencing" this setup by poking the variator boss into the hole. If I had the energy, I'd set up an electro-mechanical doohickey to flip it back and forth between quiet and loud with a switch. I sometimes just don't have the energy to deal with this stuff. Ahhh, to be 20 again with all the skills I have now.  One idea I liked was to put a spring loaded cone or flap on the back so that it would be really quiet at low speed, so as not to be annoying when pulling in and out of places, but then open up for more noise and flow when you open the throttle. That would be fun to do. I ALMOST tried making an end piece for the pipe that would be flat with pie shaped cuts in it. It would be completely closed when the motor was off, but as open as needed when running. Back pressure would be adjustable via material thickness. It would look neat too. I may still do it. |
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Post by scooter on Oct 24, 2014 22:30:50 GMT -5
Mine were damaged when I got the bike so I tapped them bigger. I used the stud's outside diameter as the basis for the hole size and selected a tap accordingly. It worked out fine and I like the bigger bolts.
The hole being easy to strip out could be a sign that the metal is a bit soft. Careful you don't leave metal chips in your exhaust port. (One of my holes went all the way through so getting chips in the port was inevitable.)
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Post by scooter on Oct 24, 2014 16:34:12 GMT -5
Just did that. Pump I got seems to work OK - but mine is rated at 5 to 8 psi, which is on high for the little needle valves in these things. Have ordered another at 2 to 4 psi, more sensible. Either one is about $20 delivered. Hook it up with a relay energized by something that gets +12V when ignition is "On" - not directly from the ignition source. Downside: My ammeter used to hover around 14v when riding, now down to 12v. Current drain MAY (?) be a bit much for the teensy stators on these things. Not sure yet. As for "scooter's" comment: My vacuum operated P.O.S. pump failed after 3 months. THAT is a source of failure. In fact - the entire notion of bleeding off manifold vacuum seems stupid to me, as is the idea these vacuum pumps will necessarily do all that is needed, reliably, at WOT. Electric is fine in those situations, and - if you ever have to empty the carb bowl of fuel, you will not be cranking for a day to get the engine to first start. Personally, one of the things I like about these scooters is that they can be kick started and need no battery. That's a handy feature if you're stuck out in the boonies and need to get home. I may not be able to build a generator to charge a dead battery left to drain by some idiot, namely me, but I can kick on the starter. Sorry you got a bad pump. I suppose mine may go bad at any time. Perhaps I should carry a container and a piece of fuel line in my tool kit.  |
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Post by scooter on Oct 24, 2014 16:17:59 GMT -5
I don't know why people would want an electric fuel pump because it seems like it's adding a fail point but.. In short, it's because one of my Scooters (actually my wife's) is the ole Retro style and has the fuel tank in the floor board (the bottom of the scooter and well below the carb) and cuts out at wide open throttle. I was thinking about getting this fuel pump: K&N 81-0401
 --------------------------- I recently repaired a vacuum line I thought may have been the problem and finally got a good day to test the fix.... It was still cutting out... I have a Muikini vacuum operated pulse pump that I'm going to try and if that doesn't fix it, I'm going with an electronic fuel pump or a gravity fed fuel tank.  I, too, have the tank in the floor and a vacuum pump. I had the same problem. At WOT, after some seconds, it would choke out and bog and I'd have to let off the throttle for several seconds to get it to work right again. I don't know what cured it. I replaced all of the vacuum lines and cleaned the carb and it stopped doing that. Initially, it may have been due to a loose intake manifold. As a note, my fuel outlet is on the bottom of the tank. Additional note, it cranks up rather quickly after a carb cleaning. The little pump really makes the fuel go. spurt! spurt! spurt!  I took it apart back when I was trying to figure out the bogging problem but found nothing wrong with it. I guess it got a cleaning if nothing else. That scooter I just fixed up has the tank up high and one of these:  And my own scooter has the tank down low and one of these:  |
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Post by scooter on Oct 24, 2014 4:59:08 GMT -5
TRY TO ENCIRCLE THE CAT, WITHOUT LETTING IT GET OUT ! START BY CLICKING ON THE CAT IMAGE TO ACTIVATE THEN ON THE LIGHT GREEN DOTS TO TRY TO TRAP IT WITH DARK GREEN DOTS. AS YOU CLICK ON THE LIGHT GREEN THEY'LL CHANGE TO DARK GREEN... Just hit reset in lower left to start over if cat gets away! NOT EASY, IT'S A SMART CAT. GOOD LUCK!! Thanks, that was fun. Got him on the 8th try. Started out at the edges. |
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Post by scooter on Oct 24, 2014 4:36:10 GMT -5
I'm considering getting an electronic fuel pump for my scooter. What do you recommend for PSI? How many Liters/Gallons per hour? (on average) How much fuel does a stock 150cc use at max throttle for 1 hour? I don't know why people would want an electric fuel pump because it seems like it's adding a fail point but.. I get about 100 kilometers per gallon or 62mpg I think, and can go 60mph, so I think I'm pumping at least 1 gallon per hour and that's on average. At full speed I don't know, but I'd say I spen most of my riding time at or near full throttle. I know I don't have your answers but I wanted to join in the conversation and see what people have to say. |
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Post by scooter on Oct 23, 2014 21:29:51 GMT -5
Thanks, Shannenn! I know people who fix and sell transportation products often have a bad reputation and for good reason. If I'm going to do service, I want to be someone people can count on and trust.  |
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Post by scooter on Oct 23, 2014 1:21:04 GMT -5
Long Answer - Is still a yes but... If it were me, I would replace the original wire. Anyhow, good luck with your fix with whatever method you chose.... I am fixing this one to sell and I wanted to get everything working, within my abilities. Thanks to you guys, I got it fixed. There was a loose connection at the CDI due to a loose blade connector on the black and white wire, the kill wire. It was also broken on the way to the kill switch. Someone had switched the black/white wire with the black/yellow wire, the kill and tach wires, so the kill switch would work, but they killed the tach connection in the process. I put the wires back in their proper positions and fixed the loose and broken connections, and everything is working now. I am glad you encouraged me to look into the problem rather than just running an extra wire. I now know how the kill switch connects to the CDI and also how the tach is connected. A big accomplishment for me. Have a bone, man.  |
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