RAIN-CHALLENGED Scooters.

[scribecalledsteff]

Okay, HERE's one for ya, kids!

Anyone any ideas what's going on? Better yet, wanna help fix it?

My bike (2003 Vino, 31,000KM) runs AWESOME in the sun after being kitted out with 70cc and new muffler, air filter, etc...

HOWEVER...

If it RAINS, then after about 5km of rain-riding, it starts to bog a teeny bit, then a block later it'll sputter and shut off. I can restart it, it'll sputter soon and shut off again. Once it's "sputtered and shut off", then I find I have to be travelling at a steady speed higher than 30km, or it'll bog, sputter, and stop.

I can get a little distance this way, but sooner or later it will completely bog down and I won't even be able to start it up. Kickstarting will register nothing.

But it dries out a few hours, and POOF, goes like butter again.

Any ideas out there? Can anyone help?

I really can't afford to have a bike shop working on this problem. I can pay people in baked goods and other yummy foods.


-steff.

[magoo]

Just some obvious thoughts:

1) many shop techs waste a lot of time shooting intermittent problems, especially ones that might be electrical, aren't trained to diagnose, just replace. Even a good tech might waste a few hours, plus it always cost extra to get panels off and on. (I know a mechanic who used to sign-off big jetliners who doesn't "get along" with electrics!)
2) the problem sounds like it is related to water, either falling down, or flying up or vibrating with engine motion, likely but not necessarily electrical, some possible effects are: water around the battery terminals, open air filter (not hard to check, it will be wet!) or half-assed 'custom' electrical connections made during the 70cc upgrade, loose or partly-shorted connectors that admit water, crack in air box or loose exhaust manifold, rusty ground connections, cracked ignition wire, poor coil connections, frayed wires etc. the OP didn't say whether the scoot is okay after sitting in the rain or whether it only fails after being started indoors and then driven in the rain. Also didn't say whether the electric start works or not - a very weak battery might also contribute to the problem.
3) if one can't at least remove body panels, there isn't much one can do oneself, if you can find somebody who knows how to use a DMM, they might be willing to do the checks in the service manual, there's a really high-quality one for free somewhere on the www. Even a few leakage tests when dry might help to isolate the location. But if the cdi et cetera were replaced as part of the upgrade the stock manual may not give the correct values for the various components. otherwise, you'll just have to prepare to either stop riding in the rain or diagnose the problem when wet - one starting point for that would be to see if the spark when it dies is noticeably weaker than the spark when it's dry. .
4) if it is electrical-related and if you get lucky a careful visual inspection of components sometimes helps. a can of contact cleaner costs about five bucks at cdn tire, dielectric grease similar or you can just put vaseline on the the outsides of the various connectors. look closely at connectors before detaching them, some have tabs that you press in, some pull out, easy to break them if you're not careful, often there are pictures of how to remove connectors at the start of the service manuals. sometimes a VERY gentle tug of various wires will reveal wobbly connections.

[magoo]

Oh, just on the topic of DMM's, I think Cdn Tire has their slightly higher-end $59 meter on sale this week for $23.95 or so.


I had one and thought it was pretty good, I think it had a stand and a fairly good instruction booklet, although as I recall it won't read peak voltages and I doubt if it's 'true-RMS', no bar graph either, can't remember if it had min/max/avg. (A few years ago, I got a peak adapter for it, the kind the outboard mechanics use for checking pickups/pulse generators, should work for most cdi or transitor ignitions, maybe even for breaker point setups - don't need it anymore, so Rocket, if you want it, you can have it - I'm sure you'd put it to good use. It will fit any meter that has + and com plugs about the same distance apart as a Fluke, I know it will fit into the $59 Cdn Tire meter).

[magoo]

Oh, it wll also do temperature, I forget the range, but Cdn Tire sells a ten-dollar thermocouple for it that I think goes up to about 600 F degrees.

[magoo]

In the old days, there were auto-electric garages who fixed nothing but charging, lighting, starting and ignition parts, some of them could re-build parts too, like the guy who re-wired my Dad's Austin generator (probably Lucas, ha ha). I wonder if there are any such specialist places for two-wheelers now, reason being that those old auto-electric shops had people who could shoot electrical problems much quicker than the average mechanic. Today, you can't even look at a bike with FI if you are afraid of electronics because it probably has an ECM. Might be a good sideline for some of electrically hip part-timers out there. Here's another one for you Rocket, if you want it, an ECM diagnostic connector for GTS and some other European models along with some M$ Windows software - I think I might just copy the connector and see if I can read the ECM from Linux.