Progress on the Xingyue XY150ZK (A.K.A. AutoMoto)

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Re: Progress on the Xingyue XY150ZK (A.K.A. AutoMoto)

Post by noiseguy »

Lots of good work here. Those tires... if they are really out of round they're always going to bounce... did you try balancing them? I'd have a talk with your vendor but you'll likely need to run down a new pair from someone else. If the maypops were out of round you'd have noticed a vibration in the back regardless of the pivot mechanism.
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Re: Progress on the Xingyue XY150ZK (A.K.A. AutoMoto)

Post by vintagegarage »

I spent the better part of the last three days working on the rear tires. To make a long story shorter, I drove 100 miles each way to one of the few tire shops left that I could find that shaved tires. I took both of the rear tires still mounted on the painted wheels up there and had them made a bit rounder. The process didn't seem like it was very well engineered, and my guess was that I wasted the $75 dollar labor charge and the 200 miles on my van. When I got home, I mounted the tires, and the rear wheel bounce was pretty much the same, perhaps only slightly better. The next day, I went from tire shop to tire shop trying to get them balanced, and was pretty much laughed out of each of them, saying that their electronic machines couldn't handle 7 inch wheels. Not a problem with their adapters, rather a electronic configuration problem. Each time, they recommended another place to try, and each recommended place let me down.

I had given away my Harbor Freight bubble balancer, wheel weights, and mounting machine when I retired to Florida, along with much of my shop equipment. Bottom line was that day before yesterday, I bought another Harbor Freight bubble balancer, and after a trip back to Harbor Freight to exchange it for one that wasn't missing parts, I found that the bubble balancer wasn't going to work without a lot of work. For the balancer to work properly, the center plate of the wheel must be roughly even height with the bubble. If the center is too high, the balancer is too sensitive and if the center is way too low, the wheel will always appear to be in balance. In any event, without machining a new mount for the bubble level (I also gave away my 10 inch metal lathe when I retired) the best I could do with the Harbor Freight bubble balancer was a rough estimate, by building an adapter. In order to be accurate, the wheel has to be perfectly centered on the balancer, and that is pretty tough to achieve with a homemade adapter and 7 inch wheels. Also, with heavy block tread 16 inch diameter tires on 7 inch wheels, putting wheel weights on the rim of the wheel is pretty useless. It takes a big stack of weights to make any difference. Bottom line is that after spending three full days on the wheels and tires, I still had rear wheel bounce, and it was only slightly improved. When I worked at European Motors in Miami in the mid 1960s we had a tire balancer that would have worked. It had three parts.. a motorized drum spinner, a motion sensor on a verticle post and a strobe light. To balance a wheel, you left it on the car, jacked up the car, put the rubber wheel of the drum spinner under the tire, the motion sensor touching the suspension, and pointed the strobe light at the wheel. As the wheel spun while mounted on the car, the strobe fired each time the suspension bounced slightly, making the wheel appear motionless. You could then see where to install balance weights. I can't find anyone who has such a balancer today.

I also took an hour with a siphon and a bucket to calibrate the new GY6 generic fuel gauge. Full is now full, half is now half, and empty has a quarter gallon or so of reserve. I now have put 177 KM on the Xingyue since I got it.

I also upsized the main jet a bit. The Xingyue ran fine with the 102 mainjet which came with the generic eBay carburetor that is sold for 125/150 GY6 engines. The same carb was on my TGB 150 Delivery Express when I bought it, and it had a miss under acceleration at any speed. The miss when away when I installed a 120 main jet. Even though the Xingyue seemed to run ok with the 102 mainjet, I upjetted it too, just because. It seems to run the same now as it did before the upjet. I do not know what size the original mainjet was as the P.O. threw away the original carb.

This morning, I replaced one of the rear tires with the best of the maypops. That tire is 10 years old, and well checked and cracked, but it still holds air. I threw away the other maypop as there was a big gash in the sidewall. A test ride may have shown some improvement in the rear wheel bounce. I have made so many test runs, I am starting to get confused. Tomorrow, I may replace the the other rear tire with the tire I took off this morning. Not sure.. the ride is quite smooth at 45 mph, but still has rear wheel bounce at 33 mph. It is most noticeable when slowing down from 45 to 25 whether using the rear brakes or not. I am now trying to see if I can buy a pair of used tires and wheels from the man who sold me the original seat, windshield wiper and rear window.

I am pretty much done with the project now, unless something else breaks on it. Now I need to figure out what to do with it. It takes up the room of three normal scooters, and I was already two scooters beyond shop capacity before I got the Xingyue. I originally got it because I thought it probably would drive like a Honda Gyro Canopy, and it probably does. The Xingyue was easy to title and insure in Florida, and I think a Gyro Canopy would be tough to title here. The Xingyue gets a lot of attention wherever I go with it, and I'd prefer to keep a lower profile. It is fun to ride, but at 45-50 mph, I feel uncomfortable in a helmet, shorts and a t-shirt.. need some more protection that would be uncomfortable in the Florida summer weather. I have pretty much accomplished my goal of seeing what it was like to ride. I'm thinking I should probably pass it along now to someone who lives in Key West.. it would be great for running errands around town, and making the occasional 50 mph run up US1 for supplies as needed..
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Re: Progress on the Xingyue XY150ZK (A.K.A. AutoMoto)

Post by Meatball »

Have you considered balancing beads in the tire? Ive personally never tried them but many moto dudes swear by them. Basically remove the valve neede and dump the magic beads into the tire...self balancing...done!
I need to find some new haters...the ones I have are starting to like me.
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Re: Progress on the Xingyue XY150ZK (A.K.A. AutoMoto)

Post by vintagegarage »

Meatball.. thanks.. I'll give them a try and report back..
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Re: Progress on the Xingyue XY150ZK (A.K.A. AutoMoto)

Post by vintagegarage »

Turns out, it's complicated.. beads are plastic, glass, ceramic, lead, stainless steel.. sizes are 1mm, 2mm, and up, some bagged, some unbagged.. found a chart that says 3 ounces is about right for a 16x8-7 tire. Each vendor says his are the best and outlines the problems with everyone elses.. a real cutthroat deal..

Even if I get rid of the rear tire bounce, it still doesn't solve my space problem in the shop..
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Re: Progress on the Xingyue XY150ZK (A.K.A. AutoMoto)

Post by Meatball »

Ya gotta think...if they were a gimmick and ineffective, there wouldnt be such a vast market of them. If you invent something, sell thousands of them and suddenly have copycat competitors trying to profit from your creation....it must work pretty d*** well.

I saw youtube videos of people using all sorts of things as ÔÇ£balancing beadsÔÇØ....copper BBÔÇÖs, airsoft gun pellets, etc. Im sure none of the rednecky items work as good as mass produced commercially available options.

FYI: DynaBeads are the ones sold by my 3 major local Motorsports dealers. Not sure if they have the highest margin, better sales/marketing team or simply are the best product? Either way, as cheap as they are I figure theyre worth a try. Also easily removable if they dont produce desired results.
I need to find some new haters...the ones I have are starting to like me.
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Re: Progress on the Xingyue XY150ZK (A.K.A. AutoMoto)

Post by vintagegarage »

meatball.. thanks.. going with Dynabeads..should arrive in a few days..
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Re: Progress on the Xingyue XY150ZK (A.K.A. AutoMoto)

Post by vintagegarage »

The balancing beads are scheduled to arrive in Thursday's mail, and I plan to work on the tires Friday morning. While I am waiting, I may work on recreating the original informational decals. This first one goes on the leg shield, just above the floor brake pedal. Note that it is incorrect.. stepping the pedal brakes only the rear wheels:

Image

The next two go below the right side of the dashboard. The top word is "WARNING":

Image

Image


I'm planning to have a big scooter sale this weekend or next. I think I will sell about a half dozen Honda scooters, and one Kymco Agility 50.
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Re: Progress on the Xingyue XY150ZK (A.K.A. AutoMoto)

Post by vintagegarage »

The balancing beads arrived in the mail at noon today, two days early, so I spent the afternoon experimenting with them. I found a chart of tire sizes vs. weight of beads, and it suggested 3 oz. for 16x8.00-7 tires. When I started, I had one of the new tires mounted on the left rear, and the best maypop on the right rear. I tried 3 then 4, then 8 oz. in the left rear, and didn't see much difference in bounce.

The testing ran into a snag, when the speedometer quit working during the second test run. I spent a couple of hours removing the windshield and much of the top so I could lift the dashboard to get to the back of the speedometer. The speedometer cable had come unscrewed from the dashboard. The same thing happened early in the restoration, when I was test riding before I installed the top. At that time, I tightened the cable nut as tight as I could get it by hand, this time I tightened it with a channel lock about as tight as I dared. I put everything back together, and only broke one more plastic tab this time. I can see someone getting plenty mad if a dashboard light burns out and you want to fix it. You pretty much have to take the whole scooter apart to get to the back of the dashboard.

In any event, I remounted the second new tire to replace the best maypop and put 8 oz of balance beads in it. As I understand the supposed physics of the way the balance beads are supposed to work, there is no harm in having too many, as if the wheel gets in balance with less beads, the extra beads should disperse evenly around the rest of the tire... not sure about that too. In any event, in my final test run, I couldn't be sure that the beads made any difference. That could mean that they don't work, or else the tires didn't need balancing, or the bouncing may be something else. In any event, I am declaring the project finished. I am tired of mounting and dismounting tires. The biggest remaining problem isn't the rear end bounce, but rather, what to do with the Xingyue now that it is finished. The Citrus County dump is only a few miles away and on the way home from testing, I considered running it off the ramp and into the pit.. I'll think about if for a few days. Time to shut down this topic though. The restoration is finished and remaining work, if any will be repairs or maintenance.

This video shows the available colors, and I see the blue one in the foreground has the same rear tires, but it looks like it has aluminum wheels.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiEzM4UAuW4

This next video is so stupid that I hate to give the guy who recorded it additional hits, but I'll post a link to it anyway. It is called "Automoto Bouncin' with a Bangin' System":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K98vdmITQBI

There are at lest two versions of the scooter.. Xingyue calls them "Wide" and "Narrow". Mine is "Wide", the ones in the bouncing video are "Narrow". Narrow wheels might be better, but they also require a different rear fender and different brake hubs. Later Xingyues have a rear disk brake setup too..
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Re: Progress on the Xingyue XY150ZK (A.K.A. AutoMoto)

Post by motormike »

vintagegarage wrote: I am declaring the project finished. I am tired of mounting and dismounting tires. The biggest remaining problem isn't the rear end bounce, but rather, what to do with the Xingyue now that it is finished. The Citrus County dump is only a few miles away and on the way home from testing, I considered running it off the ramp and into the pit.. I'll think about if for a few days. Time to shut down this topic though. The restoration is finished and remaining work, if any will be repairs or maintenance.
You do very good work Vaughn, but this particular endeavor had me perplexed from the start... :urban:
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Re: Progress on the Xingyue XY150ZK (A.K.A. AutoMoto)

Post by vintagegarage »

Yes.. very perplexing to me too... but it gave me something to do for a month. I really don't have much of a life any longer.

What I really need to do is figure out how to get one of these McCanopies titled in Florida:

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Re: Progress on the Xingyue XY150ZK (A.K.A. AutoMoto)

Post by BearBear »

Here is the shop manual if anyone is looking for one. http://www.letaj.com/scooter/Complete_S ... Manual.pdf

Have you been able to source the correct brake levers? How about plastics?
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Re: Progress on the Xingyue XY150ZK (A.K.A. AutoMoto)

Post by vintagegarage »

The brake levers were cheap and easy to get. The master cylinder for the front brake was leaking and a new "GY6" master cylinder on eBay came with the correct brake lever. See:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/GY6-Scooter-Ma ... m570.l1313

That one today is about $30 with free shipping. When I bought mine off eBay, it was the same item except the price was $13.79, and I can't remember if that included shipping, but I think it did. The original brake switch was also bad,and the switch in the new eBay one had barrel connectors instead of flat pins, so I got one of these to keep it original:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Brake-Light-Sw ... m570.l1313

Any standard GY6 parts are plentiful new and cheap, but plastic parts or anything special to the scooter is impossible to get. The big Texas warehouse bellied up a few years ago, and I could never find out what happened to their inventory. Their website was at:

http://www.jclusa.com/MP150F-sellparts.htm

At least you can get still get the parts diagrams from their web site. It also puzzles me that there doesn't seem to be anyone breaking one of these up and selling the used parts on eBay. The huge number of videos of these on youtube would make one think they were very plentiful, and I don't imagine that they lasted very long. I am pretty much done with mine.. front and rear shocks are bad and I'm tired of working on it. My goal was to see what it was like to drive, and I've accomplished that, so it is time to pass it on to the next guy. It is reasonably dangerous to ride, as it goes much faster than is safe to ride.
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Re: Progress on the Xingyue XY150ZK (A.K.A. AutoMoto)

Post by daChurchPcGuy »

I picked up a 2009 Auto Moto about a week ago. I have a few repairs to make before it's road worthy. No headlights and the tilt lock is broken. I plan on installing a kickstand and not bothering with the locking mechanism. I have read that it will fail in a strong wind.

Mine is slightly different in that I believe the rear tires are 110/90-10, I will double check when I get home.

Where did you find parts? Mine came without wipers and I'd really like to add those since the motor does work.
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Re: Progress on the Xingyue XY150ZK (A.K.A. AutoMoto)

Post by vintagegarage »

Yes, I can tell by the photo of your Auto moto in the trailer that you have the narrow version, with taller and thinner rear tires and better rear wheels. I think that is probably preferred as it may also have better brakes. As far as I know, there is no source for parts, except the standard GY6 engine and brake parts. I was able to get the wiper arm from the same man in Colorado who had a seat. I think all he has left is a pair of fat rear wheels and tires, and a complete engine, including gearbox, and the front forks. Here are links to the items he still has for sale:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/2008-xingyue-x ... SwTORblyQt

https://www.ebay.com/itm/xingyue-xy150z ... SwKF5bjsvH
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