Screwed

Ok, I have been slacking a bit on this project, but what the hell, it’s springtime, and I have the big scooter to ride, and surely you understand the need to test ride to make sure she’s up to par. I guy has to play with is toys, ya know? That’s how I got myself screwed anyway, on an ‘exercise the bike’ ride ….

See, I just had to pop off the side cases on the motor to get the engine cleaned of all the darn grime, and yes the JIS* screws probably hadn’t been opened in decades. Even with soaking in PBlaster the impact screwdriver wasn’t getting the job done so out comes the hammer and chisel, and off they come. I wanted Frankenbolts anyway, the cool, allen heads. Onto the trusty interwebs and there they are, and cheap too, on to ‘checkout’ and gasp !! The damned shipping is twice the cost of the bolts. It’s like Ebay, buy cheap stuff and pay a damned arm & leg to get it shipped into the woods here.

Have no fear, for decades one of my favorite places is Shamrock Bolt & Screw up in Springfield, MO and I have an excuse for a ride. I ride up visit some friends, etc. and take out for Shamrock. The counter lizard returns with a bag and happily says I’m SOL on the 15 or so of the longer bolts … sorry. Off to Fastenal and I get the same smiley shizz from the owner, nice guy, but his comment is ‘damn, them thangs is long’.

So, my only choice is my first choice, back to the interwebs to order 1/2 as many bolts as before and I still get to pay the same $12.50 for shipping. At least they’ll get here next week. Till then, I’ll start soaking the inside of the gas tank today and it will ready for the shiny finish outside soon.

I did pick up the leather needles and thread for the sewing machine so the new seat cover can commence. The wiring loom is installed and awaits the motor to do the electrical testing. I’ll be firing up this puppy pretty darn soon.

*JIS Japanese Industry Standard

Carburundumb

Simple drawing of a slide type carb

This is a very, very simple drawing of a ‘slide’ type carb. Yep, there is stuff missing from the drawing like the float and you can’t see where your accelerator is attached, but the stuff in a carb that mixes gas with air and allows you to make the scoot go faster is shown. This drawing shows what things look like when you are at idle. You can see that the slide is blocking about 1/2 of tunnel where the air goes into the motor.

That is why a pilot jet (idle jet) exists on every carb in the world. Yes there is a hole into the ‘throat’ of your carb right where it’s shown and gas gets sucked up so it will idle. It is a pointy needle shaped thing, and you can adjust it in or out and get your scoot to idle at the correct speed.

That thingy sticking out the bottom of the slide is a needle about 3″ long and it is also tapered, and it sticks all the way thru the ‘jet holder’ and into the jet. In this position there is no gas going thru the main jet so your scoot would not start. Your accelerator cable is attached to the top of the slide so that when you turn the throttle the slide is lifted UP and out of the way so more air can get sucked into the engine and the tapered needle goes up too, so more gas gets in and zoom you go.

Now, some of you might be thinkin’ that gas is always coming out thru the idle jet! You are right, that why it is important to set the idle mixture correctly. If you set it too lean or too rich at idle, the air/fuel mix will be wrong all the time. Bummer

The ‘jet holder’ looks like it has 3 holes in it, and it has even more than that. They are very small holes, and when the carb sucks up gas it mixes air with the gas in itty-bitty droplets for a good burn.

The PB20 Keihin carb on your scoot is a very simple device, almost never breaks, and would take years to wear out. It is brain-dead simple, easy to clean, and is seldom the issue when your scoot doesn’t run properly.

Oh, These Tires are A-Changin’

Pirelli SL26 Worn Out

It’s tire changing time. I’m not really gonna change a tire since I don’t need any changed and it’s hot, and tire changin’ does amount to some work. I do have old tires around, and a bum set of rims, and I have a blown tire that has been cut up for a mysterious ‘yard art’ project.

Over on the right are a couple of pics of the rear tire I blew at speed. Not a fun day, exciting as hell, but no fun. It happened cause I did not give the tires a regular inspection. If I had, then I would have seen the ‘chord’ was exposed and swapped in a new tire. Yes, I had a full set of new tires in the shed. Maintenance includes inspection. A stupid mistake cost me $150 or so, and I was so damn swelled up that I could not fit in my jeans for a week.

Blown Pirelli

Check your tires when you see they are getting worn. I only get about 3K miles out of a rear tire. I do not rotate tires front to rear. Makes no sense to me, I probably can get 10K out of a front tire. 75% of the weight of the scoot is sitting on the rear.

They are round when new, you will wear them and they will flatten out as they get thinner. You ride in the summer, it’s hot, the road is hotter, the tires work hard, heat builds, oxygen expands, something gives and you get a blowout. No nails or road debris required.

Changing tires is not really hard, but old tires are a lot stiffer than new ones. They go on much easier than they come off. Before you start, take all the air out of the tire/tube. If you don’t you will bend the rims and give birth to a cat. Trust me. Get some dish washing liquid and a little water and brush it on where the tires meet the “bead” of the rim. Let’em soak a few minutes, then soak ‘em again, and then do the tire dance to “break the bead loose”. Then you can remove the nuts from the rims and start pulling things apart.

When you got everything apart, clean the rims with a wire brush or ScotchBrite. Paint inside if you want, cause they will rust in there. There should be a mark on the tire which you want to line up with the notch in the rim where the inflation nipple sticks out. Line things up and push the tire onto the thick rim, install the tube (empty of air) and rotate it to the notch, set the thin rim with the notch aligned and push them together. Tire dancing may be involved here too.

I put axle grease on the tire beads to help them slip on. I tire dance enough so I can get the first nut on a rim bolt, then work around til I can install all the nuts. Then you tighten the nuts, equally around in a circle, until the is just enough room between them to insert a credit card. ???? Yep, put a credit card in between the two rims to make sure the tube is not going to be pinched when you do the final tightening of the two rims together. Make sure you tighten the rims together before going on.

Then air up the tire, 40 lbs. or so. The beads may ‘pop’ into place. Then inspect them. There is a thin little bead line on every tire in the world so you can check your tire install. Trust me. If it looks really wanker, remove the rim, lubricate the tire bead and rim and reinstall. When it all looks good, set the tire pressure to the correct PSI and install.

Ok, to start is Tire & Tube Talk, then later today I’ll post up the “Dancing With Tires” video.

And now your can ‘Dance With Tires’.

Electrical testing 2

There is some overlap between part 1 and 2 but that is OK.

A multi-meter allows you to test different stuff, so it will have a lot of ‘settings’ and will have the slimmest of manuals. It will have ohms, AC and DC settings. You don’t care about AC cause all cars, motorbikes, and scooters use DC. You will have several DC settings. Since your scoot uses a 12 volt battery you will set the m/m at 12 or 20 or something like that, just as long as you set it at 12 or the next larger setting the m/m will read accurately.

On the DC setting your m/m is going to tell you whether electrons are going out of your battery, down the wiring to the taillight bulb, then back to the other side (ground) of the battery. Electrons love to run around in circles or loops, it makes them happy.

So you can take your turn signal light apart, remove the bulb, and put the m/m on the two wires there and tell whether the electrons are running around ready to light your bulb. You already know how to test the bulb with a battery and some wires.

What confuses most people is when they take apart a turn light and they can only find one wire !@^@#%@# Holy Crap. Trust me here, in that case I guarantee that the negative (-) side of your battery will have a big, black wire on it that is firmly attached to the scooter frame. You go look at your battery and I’ll wait right here.

I told ya. So attach the red lead from the m/m to the turn signal wire and the black lead onto the frame. Find a bare spot on the frame because electrons don’t like to run thru paint. Yes, there is always electrons running around in your frame and your motor every time you ride. Works just as good as wires.

Helpful Hint. Practice this stuff on working components. You won’t learn it til you do it. Reading and watching videos ain’t learning skill, it’s learning potential facts.

Electrical Testing 1

Battery chargers are nice to have. If you can find one at a garage sale buy it. The stuff inside them that does the charging almost never breaks.

A good one will have two ‘speeds’, 6 amp to really charge an empty battery, and a 2 amp “trickle”. A 2 amp trickle charge will take a long, long time to fill up an empty battery. The charging circuit on your scooter is similar to a the trickle chargers people use.

Always hook the charger to your battery BEFORE you plug the charger in, as most chargers do not have an on/off button. You should also disconnect your battery before charging it.

With some spare wires a battery makes a great testing device, especially if you’re testing things where you can see good results like your light bulbs. The cheapy ice pick style tester is a great tester cause it has a 12 volt light in it, which is about the only way to ‘see’ electrons. I can’t tell you how small an electron is, but if it was your pecker, you’d think you didn’t have one.

The cool thing about a multi-meter is that it shows you voltage readings in places where you can’t see the electrons.

Idle compare of 2 CDI’s

You do not have to use the stock CDI in order to make your scoot run well, you can use others. The video posted here I made over a year ago so that you can listen to the scoot with each in operation. You should be able to hear the difference.

The non-stock CDI has a slightly different firing point and advance curve from the stock unit, so the scoot feels and reacts a bit differently. Overall, the stock unit is “better” in my opinion. I run the stock unit. The other is a spare, and should the stock unit fail, I will be running again very quickly.

By “better” I mean more pleasing to my scooting experience. Of course, the stock unit is also better because the engine (specifically the valve train) were designed and engineered for the stock ignition timing.

So that is two different styles of better.

Be careful, as better is one of those words that each person defines in their own unique way. Many people apply a moral meaning to these slippery words, as in right & wrong. You can find that you have offended their godly and righteous view of the universe at which point they might kick your ass.

We’re Rollin’

Ok, I’ve sorta made a start at getting this thing rolling.

Up top are what are called ‘pages’. I’ll put some info up there, very general stuff.

Over on the right, as I add new posts/videos you will see a list of ‘catagories’. This is where the action will be. These catagories will keep everything organized into intelligent topics like: tuning, brakes, tires, mechanical, tools, electrical, carbs, fuel … you get the idea.

I’m setup for the first two videos, but it’s dark, and rainy, and yucky out today so …..

I thought I’d just throw this in. I do have some older clips which I will toss up here, this I kept just cause I thought it was funny.