motorscooter starts but will not run

[Micky]

IIRC, it's compression ratio is pretty high, yes 10.5:1. I guess that means it needs premium.

Interesting reviews. Someone said he lived on a really large cul-de-sac and the 18-wheeler had room to come in. How big do cul-de-sacs get?

And this one: "The scooter is all put together and now it won't start. It sounds like it wants to but just will not turn over." If it doesn't turn over, it won't make any noise at all. A lot of people misunderstand what turn over means.

And it reminded me, earlier tonight I looked into taking apart and cleaning the carburetor, if you guys tell me I have to, from the milky gasoline. But even the warm days have only 5 hours of warmth, and I have no garage, and even my work bench is full of stuff. But I can get a whole new carburetor, it seems, for $11. Well, wrong about that. One page says how to measure the diameter. I think my intake and output diam. are the same.

Darn, this one is $22. Even this one doesn't look exactly like mine. This one is $11, but it's somehow for 2-stroke and doesn't look like what's on there now. I have to re-adjust my thinking.

[Bud Doobie]

Sort of like the subject of this thread "motorscooter starts but will not run".

WTF? If the motor starts, it runs. It may not run very long but it does run.

[Micky]

You have a point, but I think his is worse. Hey, I put "will not run" in the future tense. I was referring to tomorrow.

I know you guys a Ganja University, School of Syntax and Spelling take this stuff seriously. I"ll try to do better.

[Micky]

This one has no manual setting, but I read that when you first get the scooter from the freight company, I think you're supposed to suck on the hose to get the gas to the carburetor.

I considered putting on the old-style manual petcock, which now that you mentioned it, I remember seeing on at least one bike long ago, but there's no good place to mount it without lengthening the hoses a lot, perhaps making the gas run uphill part of the way, and trying to mount it. on the curved, flimsy, plastic body parts. (Also I don't know yet that this part is the problem.)

[rbowman]

You certainly can have fun... I was starting a Yamaha one spring after a long winter and feeding in ether liberally. It took a while to fire, meanwhile filling the exhaust with ether fumes. When it all went off the neighbor came running over to see what I'd shot.

[rbowman]

Big enough... Long story but when I was driving an 18 wheeler I had to deliver one sofa to a private party who lived in a rural area north of Boise. Dragged it in, took the plastic off, watched the family flop on it, all of which wasn't the normal procedure. Then I asked them how to get out, since it was a narrow dirt road. They told me to go down about a quarter mile and there was a cul de sac where I could turn the rig around. They said the neighbor had a mailbox that might be in the way but it was okay if I ran over it since they didn't like the prick anyway.

I left the mailbox standing, which is remarkable considering some of the things I destroyed horsing around a 53' trailer.

[Micky]

I meant too much so the engine which would otherwise run, woudln't.

But I like your story.

[Micky]

LOL. What would you have done if there was no place like the culdsac?

[rbowman]

I suppose if you really hosed it down but I've only used few second bursts.

[rbowman]

Shot the guy and buried him in the back yard? It would have been a long way to back out.

Further off topic, I went up to a little alpine lake one spring on the bike. There was a campground and a road all way but I hit drifted snow about half a mile from the end. I parked the bike and walked the rest of the way. When I came out, I noticed fresh tire tracks in the snow where I'd parked the bike that made it about 25 yards into the drift. Trying to break through drifts is sort of a spring time sport around here so I didn't think much of it. Then I looked down the road and saw a pickup towing a camp trailer slowly backing down. This is a steep, one lane, not very good forest road with about a 500' drop off on one side. I had just about enough room to squeeze by on the bike. The guy said 'This is the stupidest thing I've ever done.' and I had to agree. He had about a half mile to go before there was a place wide enough to turn around and the sun was going down. There wasn't anything I could do to help so I continued on.

[Muggles]

Years ago I visited some friends in Trona, CA. They decided one day to take me "off-roading" up a mountain nearby. At first it was just rough road going uphill winding in all sorts of directions, but then the road got rather narrow and a look off to one side looked like a million mile drop off to someone like me who'd never gone off-roading up the side of a mountain like that. I kept covering my eyes and mumbling "WE'RE gona DIE!!!" The friends who took me on the ride thought I was pretty funny, but at the time I didn't think it was funny at all. They hadn't given me any warning about where we were going. When we finally got to a plateau where there was a big enough place for the caravan we were in to pull up next to each other it turned out to be this large sand dune that was half way up this mountain. When we got out to take a look the view was like nothing I'd EVER seen before. I could see this dry lake bed below us and it looked like we were on top of the world.

Of course, my friends had made the trip so many times they knew every turn, dip, and danger spot, but for me although it scared the life out of me I can honestly say it was the most memorable site I've ever seen or been to. After we came down from that mountain, we drove a ways to another popular site where there were these sand dunes, I think it was Death Valley. We got out and walked a ways on the dunes, and took photos. It was amazing how far distances actually were compared to what our brains thought was just a few miles... it was actually more like 20 miles.

[clare]

It does not take a lot of ether starting fluid to damage an engine, large or small. Too much can take out head gaskets, crack pistons, or cause any number of other serious problems on an engine. The stuff is highly "explosive" Too much will also wash oil off cyl walls - but that's WAY too much.

[Micky]

Wow. On the one time I had a trailer and headed down a dead end street , I stopped when I was still partly in the intersection and it still took me 10 minutes to back up 8 feet so I could go the other way. Backing a half mile with a trailer, my gosh.

Could he have disonnected the trailer, turned it and the car around and reconnected? Assuming he could lift the tongue. I know trailers can be very heavy.

[rbowman]

Blue Mountain is a popular recreation area on the south side of town. There's a road to the top where the U has a little observatory and the FS has a fire tower. It really isn't that bad a road compared to a lot others around here, but someone manages to kill themselves every couple of years.

Yesterday I was hiking on one of my favorite loops and I decided to take a little detour to look for a roadside attraction. Either I was on the wrong slope or they finally extracted it but there has been a Subaru Forester about 50' down from the road on a slope that required scrambling to get up. The car was perfectly vertical, standing on its nose propped up against the big ponderosa pine that stopped it from going any further. There was still some junk in it including a baby carrier. I don't recall reading about a fatality but it must have been one hell of a ride when they missed the corner.

I've got to admit that on the bike there are places where I hug the uphill side of the road, turn on my tunnel vision, and try not to think what's on the other side of the narrow, rocky road. Bouncing over big rocks on a dirt bike, you don't always go quite where you intended and I prefer to be as far from the edge as possible.

[rbowman]

Not a prayer. The road was only about 8 feet wide, steep uphill slope on the left, steeper downhill slope to the right. The logging roads are nothing fancy, just enough of a cut to get a truck through. When they're logging the truckers have CB's so one can wait at a pull off like a train on a siding.

20-20 hindsight he should have dropped the trailer and seen if he could make it through with the pickup. But, June down it the valley, birds chirping, and all that good stuff, you don't really plan to be stopped by snow drifts.

[Micky]

I can see that.

>

[Micky]

About a month ago Inside Edition had some guy on bicycle miss a turn in the mountains and go over a cliff, 30 or 50 feet down. He wasn't hurt badly, somehow, but that's because Inside Edition avoids showing clips with unhappy endings. There are probably others that don't end so well.

[Muggles]

Not sure why, but the story text is greyed out for me. I can't read it.

Here are 2 pics of the trip up the mountain: This one is at the bottom looking up at the destination. You can see the plateau dune up a ways. The road veers off and hits some narrow stretches on the edge of the mountain before we can actually reach the plateau.

This is a shot looking down from the dune. We can see the dry lake bed and the chemical plant there that processes the underground water for the minerals there.

[Micky]

Works for me, latest version of FF.

Is the lake always dry or is this because of hte drought. Where is this anyhow?

Very nice.

[Muggles]

It's on the outskirts of Trona, Ca. As far as I know, when I visited there the locals told me the lake was like that all the time. It still has water in it under the surface area that's dry.

Up til I visited there, I'd never seen anything even close to that kind of a view before.