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Where were you about 12 hours ago to warn me about that? LOL, rookie painter mistake, lesson learned, go light on the primer at the edges and use a blade to cut away when dry.

I went to Pep Boys and got one of the touch up pens in indigo blue, nice and dark. I'll use it to clean up the edges I screwed up as much as I can. It's part of the Dupli-Color line, called a Scratch Fix All In 1. It has a couple of different tips, one for roughing and cleaning the scratch, a pressure sensitive tip to fill scratches, and a paint brush. It also has a foam brush in the handle with clear coat. I used the rough tip around the edges that I had issues with, and the pressure tip to clean it up. From a distance, you would never know, close up inspecting it all the flaws are visible. Can't say I've seen too many people spending a lot of time inspecting helmets up close, so I think I'm good to go!

Could be as simple as the spark plug boot. I had one begin to get loose. It was hard to start with the electric starter, but started easy with the kickstarter, I eventually found out because pushing down on the kickstarter pulled it just a bit causing it to make better contact. While riding, I would have times when I lost all power, surges and bucking like a bronco, then it would power back up. The looseness of the spark plug boot meant it only worked when vibrated into the right position, any hard bump or the right vibration could knock it loose, then it would vibrate back on. Replaced it after chasing down possibilities in the carb and elsewhere thru the system, and it has run perfect ever since.

Thanks! I used Dupli-Color primer and paint, and some generic clear lacquer I had left over from a cabinet repair. I went really cheap on the polishing compound, Turtle Wax light to medium polishing compound for $6!

Now that I have a beautiful metallic blue scooter, I need a matching helmet. I really like my safety yellow Bilt helmet, has decent ventilation, an inner sun visor, nice snug but comfy fit, and is modular so I can put on my glasses easy and take a drink at a stop. So I decided to try to paint it to match my scooter as close as I can.

Here it is in the original safety yellow finish (my other scooter is yellow, but more of a sports car yellow):


I started by roughing up the surface with 200 grit sandpaper, cleaned it up and let it dry. I then masked off all the parts I didn't want to paint, and all openings (solvents dissolve foam, must be careful). Next, I applied to good coats of grey sand-able scratch filling primer. Here's how she looks primed up:


I let it dry overnight, even though it said it was good after 2 hours, I wanted to be sure the primer was cured (waited till no more smell). Then I wet sanded it with 400 grit sandpaper. I sanded through a tiny bit on a couple of the ridges, very hard to sand all the weird shapes on a helmet. I then cleaned it up and let it dry. Next, I applied four coats of the base metallic blue I found that was a shade lighter than my scooter, letting it dry for a half hour between each coat. Here she is with the base coat applied:



I let the base coat dry for about a half hour, then used a fogging technique to apply a black metallic over the base metallic blue in an attempt to match the dimensional look of my scooter's paint job. By fogging I mean I acted like a hairstylist putting hairspray on someone, holding the can back twice as far as normal and moving it rapidly all over the place, allowing the paint to fog/mist onto it. After comparing to the scooter, I fogged it two more times with the black metallic, then once with the blue metallic. Here it is after the fogging:


I let it dry overnight again, with colder temps it's always good to wait overnight between painting steps like these. Today I applied 6 very light coats of lacquer clear coat, allowing each to dry for half an hour. It was cooler than I hoped for when doing this, and I ended up with a lot of fisheye I'll have to wet-sand and polish out tomorrow. Here it is on the scooter after clear coating:


Even though it is a shade lighter than the scooter, I think I did a pretty good job approximating the dimensional effect the scooter's paint job has on my helmet. I'll post a pic of it all polished up tomorrow, gotta let the clear coat set all the way before wet-sanding, regardless of what the directions say safe handling time is (handling is not the same as sanding).

I use an open end wrench and a wood deck screw with a square bit, fits the taper just right. Here's a video describing it, and a mathematical method for setting the gap.

Check your valves, check your enricher, and clean your carb. Those are the primary reasons for hard starts. Also, since you have been pulling it off and putting it back on a bunch lately, check your spark plug boot, the contacts can get loose from removing and re-installing.

He already posted a very nice pic. Didn't you notice his avatar?