Author Topic: engine cranks but no spark; blinkers going crazy  (Read 650 times)

societyofrobots

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Re: engine cranks but no spark; blinkers going crazy
« Reply #15 on: January 13, 2024, 03:52:22 AM »
good news
The spark plug is now sparking! yay!
It's reading 150 ohm, and 0.256 VAC with the MM.

Well this gets more interesting...

Thinking my carb is clogged, I go to Walmart to get some carb spray.

I come back, and then the spark isn't working again!

I rip out my hair, wiggle some wires, unplug and plug back in the CDI... and then the spark is working again... wtf! Must be a bad connection somewhere but I can't find it >:(

I put the spark plug back in but still wasn't starting, so I spray the carb spray into the air intake, and then it starts! yay! But, it only runs for 2-3 seconds then dies again. boo! There was a lot of thick oily gunk inside the air intake area, never saw that before.

I'm not going to take the carb apart, I'm just not a mechanic enough to do that. If I keep spraying carb spray into the intake, and let the gas work it's way through, will it eventually work?

Ruffus

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Re: engine cranks but no spark; blinkers going crazy
« Reply #16 on: January 13, 2024, 12:38:02 PM »
First of all, congrats to your success👍👍🛠
- this intermitting failures are always a hair tearing issue. Important is, it's running.
All other minor nuisances can be ironed out after that.

Yes, this stator cables are crucial to your starting story. That's why I always hinted to sand connectors, CDIs too.
Suspect still conductivity  COIL-CABLE-CAP-SPARKPLUG.

CARB: it MIGHT work to "flush" it through with cleaner, try.
If not, there is always the way to resamble and clean.

Clean out your airfilter or remove air inlet  from your carb completely for now until motor runs properly.

There is a transparent hose hanging down under your motor (oily watery stuff inside) empty that one.

New starting approach always with a new (cleaned and completely dry sparkplug) to eradicate this as a culprit.
There might be a lot of fuel and gunk lurke in your system from former starting attempts.

A jump battery will be an idea too, but don't start longer than 10 seconds at once , not to burn your starter motor.
« Last Edit: January 13, 2024, 01:01:30 PM by Ruffus »
Happy and safe scootering, Ruffus

Iahawk

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Re: engine cranks but no spark; blinkers going crazy
« Reply #17 on: January 13, 2024, 05:42:45 PM »

I'm not going to take the carb apart, I'm just not a mechanic enough to do that. If I keep spraying carb spray into the intake, and let the gas work it's way through, will it eventually work?

as a carb cleanin' fool (me), I will always suggest you do a proper clean on your carb. Spraying carb cleaner through the intake won't clean your jets or passages. These carbs are quite simple. There are endless vids on youtube showing how to clean a CV carb. A proper job is to remove carb from scoot, disassemble, clean all jets and passages with carb cleaner (remove all rubber bits before cleaning, carb cleaner will swell and ruin them), blow out with compressed air (if possible) and reassemble. A quick and dirty way is to just unhook your carb from airbox and intake, rotate it over, remove bowl, pull out pilot and main jets, and give those and the bowl a clean. Then reassemble.
2010 People S200 - sold after 8 wonderful years!
2014 Ninja 300
1996 Honda Helix
1984 Honda Nighthawk 650 - work in progress

societyofrobots

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Re: engine cranks but no spark; blinkers going crazy
« Reply #18 on: January 13, 2024, 07:15:06 PM »
as a carb cleanin' fool (me), I will always suggest you do a proper clean on your carb. Spraying carb cleaner through the intake won't clean your jets or passages. These carbs are quite simple. There are endless vids on youtube showing how to clean a CV carb. A proper job is to remove carb from scoot, disassemble, clean all jets and passages with carb cleaner (remove all rubber bits before cleaning, carb cleaner will swell and ruin them), blow out with compressed air (if possible) and reassemble. A quick and dirty way is to just unhook your carb from airbox and intake, rotate it over, remove bowl, pull out pilot and main jets, and give those and the bowl a clean. Then reassemble.

While I'm certainly capable of doing it, it'll likely be a multiple hour project for me because I'm no mechanic. I'd rather spend that time on other important projects and just pay a professional to do the carb. If I can get it to work with just a few squirts into the air intake, I'll take it.

I only chose to do this project because I'm an electrical expert so figured it'd be quick and easy. Still ended up being a full week of work. Today I accidentally tightened a bolt onto the pickup coil wire and destroyed the wire, so gotta replace it again. You'd think a project is simple and then things happen.

My Kymco Super 8 150 is already 14,000 miles, so it's approaching end of life. I'm tired of moody scooter combustion engines that constantly have problems. I really want an electric scooter but the tech (range and price) just isn't there yet.


ps - I was wondering what happened to my last post. Turned out it was on the second page lol

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