My scooter, with about 850 miles on it, has decided not to come back from a brief winter storage.
Prior to putting it away for winter, I changed the oil, did a tweak or two on the carb, replaced the fuel filters, and rode it probably 50 miles like this over a while. It was dead nuts reliable. Stored with ethanol-free fuel with Star-tron added just in case. Same fuel I have always used in this scooter, as well as my wife's scooter and my GS500.
The problem: when it's cold, been sitting, it will start but requires some throttle to keep it running. This is actually a normal behavior of this scooter. It starts and runs fine, as expected, for like 15 seconds, and then just dies. Attempts to restart it are met with occasional catching like it might start, but invariably it won't restart until I go away and let it sit for a good while. It always behaves this way, whether it's 40 degrees outside or 80 (like today). Fuel filters are full of fuel so it appears unlikely it's a fuel pump problem (my initial thought). And if I attempt to ride it while it's in this 15 second running phase, as soon as I give it throttle under load, it dies and won't start back up until I let it sit a few hours. It's never getting warmed up at all.
One thing I noticed today is a surprising amount of oil smoke while it's running for that 15 seconds. It only has like 300 miles on it, so no burning oil is expected. When I changed the oil, ISTR the manual called for 0.9L of oil but I rounded it to 1.0 qt. I guess it's possible it's overfilled a tiny amount and fouling the spark plug with blow by? I checked all of the usual stuff, vacuum hoses and intake boot and all that, everything looks like it should "just work", and since the last time I rode it before parking it back in about November, it was running prerfectly fine.
Ideas? I plan to dig into it this weekend.
Prior to putting it away for winter, I changed the oil, did a tweak or two on the carb, replaced the fuel filters, and rode it probably 50 miles like this over a while. It was dead nuts reliable. Stored with ethanol-free fuel with Star-tron added just in case. Same fuel I have always used in this scooter, as well as my wife's scooter and my GS500.
The problem: when it's cold, been sitting, it will start but requires some throttle to keep it running. This is actually a normal behavior of this scooter. It starts and runs fine, as expected, for like 15 seconds, and then just dies. Attempts to restart it are met with occasional catching like it might start, but invariably it won't restart until I go away and let it sit for a good while. It always behaves this way, whether it's 40 degrees outside or 80 (like today). Fuel filters are full of fuel so it appears unlikely it's a fuel pump problem (my initial thought). And if I attempt to ride it while it's in this 15 second running phase, as soon as I give it throttle under load, it dies and won't start back up until I let it sit a few hours. It's never getting warmed up at all.
One thing I noticed today is a surprising amount of oil smoke while it's running for that 15 seconds. It only has like 300 miles on it, so no burning oil is expected. When I changed the oil, ISTR the manual called for 0.9L of oil but I rounded it to 1.0 qt. I guess it's possible it's overfilled a tiny amount and fouling the spark plug with blow by? I checked all of the usual stuff, vacuum hoses and intake boot and all that, everything looks like it should "just work", and since the last time I rode it before parking it back in about November, it was running prerfectly fine.
Ideas? I plan to dig into it this weekend.
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