Honda Spree and Elite 50 Forums

Well, if you go into the tech docs forum, there are a couple of very nice guides to cleaning your carb. That's where I got the info from mine.

Kenny_McCormic wrote:Pull off parts are cheap. A coil is a coil, especially in a CDI setup.

You would be wrong with that statement. A coil is not a coil and especially with a CDI. These systems are designed to function a certain way with components that have a specific electric value. The will function but not properly and will cause early failures using the wrong parts. I'm am not a fan of used parts. It's sort of like picking up a soda pop can that someone left along the street and drinking out of it. Only God knows what it actually is.

Greetings:

My Aero was sold to me by a friend who at one time purchased a "kit" to overhaul the carb. As often happens, he never got around to finishing the project. I'm not sure if/where the kit can be procured today.

Without replacement parts, cleaning the carb may or may not help. Rubber in gasoline tends to deteriorate over time. There's a little needle valve controlled by the float which is particularly vulnerable to this.

The cleaning process can be reviewed here:

http://www.hondaspree.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=3

Good luck!

Wheelman-111 wrote:Greetings:

My Aero was sold to me by a friend who at one time purchased a "kit" to overhaul the carb. As often happens, he never got around to finishing the project. I'm not sure if/where the kit can be procured today.

Without replacement parts, cleaning the carb may or may not help. Rubber in gasoline tends to deteriorate over time. There's a little needle valve controlled by the float which is particularly vulnerable to this.

The cleaning process can be reviewed here:

http://www.hondaspree.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=3

Good luck!

They stopped using rubber in carb gaskets and "o" rings better than 25 years ago because of the nasty stuff they started putting in gas to replace the nasty lead.

Greetings:

Quoth the Bear: "They stopped using rubber in carb gaskets and "o" rings better than 25 years ago because of the nasty stuff they started putting in gas to replace the nasty lead."

Agreed, but plastic and polymers of all sorts lose integrity with time, become brittle and fail. I have seen floats with cracks in them causing the bowl fill valve to fail to flow. In fact this may be Scooternewby's exact problem.

Wheelman-111 wrote:Greetings:

Quoth the Bear: "They stopped using rubber in carb gaskets and "o" rings better than 25 years ago because of the nasty stuff they started putting in gas to replace the nasty lead."

Agreed, but plastic and polymers of all sorts lose integrity with time, become brittle and fail. I have seen floats with cracks in them causing the bowl fill valve to fail to flow. In fact this may be Scooternewby's exact problem.

But the parts are not rubber anymore and that is my point. I didn't say anything about not using new parts when rebuilding a carb. Remember I did this stuff to make a living and a return because it wasn't done right was money out of my pocket.

Well just to give it a try, before ripping it apart, i sprayed some carb cleaner into the carb and ran the scooter. It has not stalled once yet, since I sprayed it in. Fire's up everytime and stays running. So I will definetly take it apart and clean it thouroughly.

SO. . . when I WAS running it, I was not able to get it to move. I could rev it with the back wheel off the ground and she'd go! No problem. But as soon as I put my wieght on it and gave it throttle, it would die.

Could this just be the dirty carb problem still? Old gas?

Oh man im so close thanks to all the good advice I got here! Im pretty excited now! Im almost there!

and for the life of me, i cant see where to check the oil? There's the one under the seat, but thats 2-stroke mix, is it not? Is there somewhere else to look?

You run a 2-stroke. It is oiled through the oil in the mixture. There is no oil in the crank-case. The oil gets mixed with the gasoline either in the carb or in the intake manifold, then the mixture enters the crankcase, and gets sucked up into the cylinder. On its way, it lubricates your engine (and during combustion). Hence, there is no place to "check your oil" like you would in a 4-stroke. You check your oil by looking at the 2-stroke oil reservoir.

Yes, my problem was that my idle jet is (rather, was) clogged. Your auto-bystarter was designed to help with cold-weather starting and warming up. When you first start up your bike (I'm using a normal, well running bike as an example), it gets its fuel from the idle jet and from the bystarter-enrichment circuit. That extra circuit basically pumps more gasoline into the mixture (simulating a "choke" by making the mixture run very rich). Now, your bystarter is powered by a single-wire from your stator (alternator), so, when the engine starts up, it starts receiving power. The top of the bystarter has a small resistor-coil in it that heats up a little reservoir or wax. In turn, the wax expands and pushes down on the needle assembly of the bystarter. When that happens, it basically shuts off the enrichment circuit by cutting off the extra fuel supply, allowing the bike to run like normal (not "choked"). This process usually takes anywhere from 2-5 minutes to occur.

Now, on my bike, it would idle fine for a while, and even rev a little bit right after I started it up. But, after about a minute, the idle would start to get choppy, and if I gave it any throttle at all, it would just try to die on me. Eventually it would just die, even if I let it idle. So, what I discovered by unplugging my bystarter (aka leaving the bike on "choke", so it's getting extra gas), was that my bike would run halfway decent, as the bystarter never would engage. This led to the conclusion that my idle jet is clogged, and the extra fuel from the enrichment circuit was, basically, substituting my idle jet. This is bad, as your mixture won't be correct, but it gave me something to go on.

As for your bystarter, if your carb is anything like my Spree's, the bystarter will be that big, black, rubber looking unit attached to the top of the carb, with wires running off of it. It may have a shroud over it, you can just slide that up the throttle cable temporarily. If you follow the wires back, you will eventually come to a plug. Just unplug it, and then see if it stays running and lets you rev. But, I'm on round #6 for cleaning my carb (I'm hoping I finally got it cleaned all of the way!), it goes to show that these carbs are VERY picky about how clean they are.

I just removed the carb entirely just now. Im going to clean it in the AM. Im going to follow the how-to on this website. If anyone has any final tips to give me before I clean it, im listening!!

Thanks again everyone for all the input!

yeah, dont hook up the lines like its shown in the guide.

your pal has a different gas/oil/vac/ drain line set up. before taking off your carb look over where everything goes.

Dac wrote:yeah, dont hook up the lines like its shown in the guide.

your pal has a different gas/oil/vac/ drain line set up. before taking off your carb look over where everything goes.

Digital camera is always a plus. A couple of pics before disassembly and putting it back together gets easier.

Digital camera is always a plus. A couple of pics before disassembly and putting it back together gets easier.[/quote]

That would have been a great idea! All the lines kinda just stayed in place when I took it off, so it should be somewhat obvious when I put it back together.

Thanks again

Clean the emulsion tube! That's the little brass tube above your main jet (it only comes out when you un-screw the main jet.....you may need to shove it out, use something non-metal.....a toothpick or bamboo skewer work nicely. Make sure all of the little holes are clear). Also, make sure your idle jet is unclogged.....it may take...a while.