Having problems starting my scooter By blindrider (Read 3,036 times)

[blindrider]

Hi everyone.
I have a Roketa Bali 150 I havent been able to start it in some time. It hasnt started since october.
The battery is strong, the starter turns over, fuel pump is working, the coil is working, the spark piug appears to be fine, I dont know how to check the auto choke???
I am in a rural area and dont want to take it to a shop unless i absolutly have to.
Have any suggestions on what else I should check?

[Cruiser]

Welcome to Scooter Doc, blindrider. Your scoot uses a vacuum fuel pump. The original fuel pumps can be marginal. Gas can dry out of the carb after a while and maybe all it needs is priming. Does it start with a shot of carb cleaner? This may be all you need to get the carb primed and back to normal operation.

Fuel pump action can be very weak especially when starting the engine. If no gas is in the carb, the pump may not be strong enough to feed the gas up to the carb at starter cranking speeds.

[sprocket]

Was there gas in the tank since October? If there was, chances are your problem is related to the gas turning into varnish...plugging the carb.

Gas oxidizes and some of the solids in it come out of solution. By the way, never use an Ethanol blend on these scooters. It oxides at a very fast rate and can break down in a couple of months or so...

This sticky varnish then plugs up the carburator. The only thing to do is to remove the carb and clean it with carb cleaner... including running a very fine wire, like from a twist tie, through the jets...

I like to take the carb apart, remove the diaphragm and soak the rest for a day or two... then clean and reassemble it.

Also you will need to drain the whole fuel system, the pump and replace the fuel filter.

[jhbietz]

Got to disagree with never use ethanol. That is all I use and I recommend it to all my customers. I can park my scooters, lawn mower, and weed eater in the fall, let them set all winter and they always start easily in the spring. I don't drain anything. I don't use stable or any other additive. Everything just starts right up!

[benellibob]

really? are you sure the fuel lines and carb seals are rated to handle ethanol? because i dont trust the chinese rubber that comes on these things in the first place. ethanol in your gas will eat up rubbers that arent build to handle it. e85 vehicles are. none of my vehicles run better with ethanol in the gas. less power, less mileage and never runs quite right. i want pure gas back you cant even seem to get it anymore...

[jhbietz]

All I can say is 3 years running on it and no problems yet! My wife's shooter is very high compression and won't run on anything but 93 octane with ethanol. My yard equipment has ben running on ethanol for almost 10 years. Using ethanol will keep the fuel system clean and actually prevent problems.

[mthomas]

Most likely either jet is plugged due to varnish or pump is not strong enough to push fuel. Here is what you do, take off the air cleaner cover OR remove the air hose at the back of the carb. Put some gas in a small spray bottle and put in two shots of gas into either the back of the carb or air box. Hit the starter and it should fire up. Now, if it dies and won't restart, the jet is plugged. If it keeps running, then most likely the pump was a bit weak and should keep up. If it runs like poop, the jet may be partially plugged and should be cleaned.

[jhbietz]

First a little history. Ethanol has been used as a motor fuel for almost as long as the internal combustion engine has been around. Henry Ford"s first cars were designed to run on ethanol. He was never a fan of gasoline but had to give in as the oil companies gained more and more power.

I agree that an E85 car will lose fuel mileage when using the E85 instead of gasoline. The reason is that your running 85% ethanol in an engine designed for gasoline. To successfully burn ethanol you have to designed the motor for it. An ethanol based engine has bigger injectors or jets and much higher compression (as high as 14 to 1).

Now lets talk about efficiency. A gallon of gasoline contains more joules of energy then a gallon or ethanol. As stated before you have to run a richer air to fuel ratio with ethanol. This would all lead people to believe that your could never get as good of fuel mileage with ethanol.
There is another factor present in this equation, Thermal efficiency. Gasoline burns at a very fast rate producing a quick explosion and allot of heat. Ethanol burns much slower and with less heat The piston receive more of a "push" then the quick shove of gasoline. With gasoline a high percentage of the energy produced is lost to the heat of the exhaust and the cooling system. With ethanol much more of the energy is turned into useful "work" and less into wasted heat.

As far as a stock scooter goes, you are correct. Using a high octane fuel when not needed is a waste of money and can actually lower fuel mileage regardless of weather it has ethanol in it or not. My wife's scooter cane with a sticker form the factory requiring 91 octane. It seamed to run just fine on 89 octane. That was before she decided she needed to keep up with her girlfriends Zooma. It now has a 77cc big bore cylinder. The head that came with the BBK did not look very good so I ported and polished the original head which has a smaller combustion chamber then a BBK head dose. Thus raising the compression ratio. The end result was a very fast little scooter. She can easely run away from her friends stock Zumma. The down side is that with anything less then 93 octane it doesn't run very well and could damage the engine.

My apologies to Blindrider for hijacking your thread. I will shut my big mouth now.