50cc IceBear takes multiple attempts to start?

[wahlman]

50cc IceBear takes multiple attempts to start Sometimes I have to press for the full 5 seconds and it takes 1 or 2 cycles.  This is in Florida hot weather Summer.  

Need some advice please.  Its a 2015 with only 1200 miles.  I am the second owner bought it 2 weeks ago with 900 miles and took it to local mechanic for valve adjustment.  It still runs kind of weird and I am thinking to upgrade the stock carb.  But mechanic charges 75 bucks to do it.  Already it has NGK sparkplug. 


I can get top speed of 42 to 45 mph on flat ground.  I only weigh 130 lbs.      

[jeff84]

seeing you are at sea level, I would try leaning out the air fuel mix screw before I went out and bought a new carb. there are lots and lots of great resources on the internet about adjusting carbs. I recommend reading as many as you can stand to read and or watch. even if its not about your specific carb model. they all work on the same basic principals.

[wahlman]

Thanks Jeff,

I did not think it would have anything to do with the carb, I thought I had a "bad starter" or something. I am new to scooters.

Do you think I am safe to just keep riding the scooter in this condition or should I make immediate repair?

[ratdog]

Normally there are two adjustments to get the idle right on your carb. Many have the mixture adjustment “blocked off”.




This is an example of a carb with the mixture adjustment blocked off. That brass plug near the back of the carb is hiding the mixture adjustment. For most of us, drilling that out is no big deal, but I’m going to say for you it’s not something to attempt. If that is blocked off, there is really nothing for you to adjust. If instead you see a screw head, then it’s good news.

On the other side of the carb, you have an idle stop. Basicly a screw that you can adjust to set the idle speed. Thames the bike out and warm it up, then then check the idle speed. I hope you have a tach on your bike. Some times hard starting can be as simple as the idle set too low. I would try increasing the idle speed a bit to see if it helps the starting problem. Also, remember don’t touch the twist grip when cranking the engine. The electric choke on these guys is set up to work at idle, not with you twisting the grip.

While you are at it, I would love to have you take the scoot out for a long high speed run, and shut it off with the throttle open. Then take out the plug and look at it. We want to see a tan color on the plug. My icebear and my brothers both came jetted way too lean. If the engine is running lean, the plug will look white and if rich will look black

btw, hard starting shouldn’t have anything to do with driveability.  I would not worry about driving it, unless you heard odd sounds

the other thing we haven’t mentioned is did the previous owner leave the bike “stock”. If he did ant “upgrades”, we may have a whole different list of problems

getting a look at that plug would help a lot!

[ratdog]

Another thought came to me. As we don’t know what the PO did to the bike, he may have changed the CDI and or coil. On my IB, the cdi is in the battery compartment. The battery compartment is in the bottom of the scooter between your feet. It should be held down by one screw and the plastice clips in the top. Remove that cover, and look for a little box with a bunch of wires going to it. I
If it is stock, it will be black and have no fins. If that CDI is orange, or if it has cooling fins on it, we have found your hard starting proble! Just need to go back to a stock box!

[wahlman]

The previous owner only upgraded the sparkplug to NGK, other than that it is completely stock. It also still has the stock carb now at 1200 miles I will probably upgrade that and was hoping to do it on my own but I dont like the idea of taking it out, fiddling with the screws or jets, putting it back in testing, taking it apart, fiddling with the settings, put it back in and so forth.

I am nervous enough just to swap the part out once, let alone do a process of trial and error going back and forth. I watched a few of the carb tuning videos on YouTube but it still looks too complicated to me to have to balance out so many variables so I will probably pay the mechanic the 75$ fee to upgrade and tune the carb.

Now the valve adjustment I do feel comfortable to do because that is alot more straight forward (I mean when it needs that in the future). But carb tuning is over my head, too many variables to balance.

[ratdog]

Setting the mixture adjustment is much easier then setting the valves. In fact setting the valves can be a real hassle if you don’t have a valve adjustment tool. The issue is getting the center screw set correctly and keeping it in place while you tighten the lock nut. Most will have to redo it multiple times. And of course, you need a feeler gauge set that includes a .004”

Before you even think of changing the carb, do a good bit of high speed running on the bike then pull the plug. A replacement carb will most often have the same jets in it that are in your stock carb, so it will do no good. We need to see how the bike is running now to make an educated guess where you need to go on the new carb

As far as working on carb, it is easy. The carb is really only attached at two points. The intake which is a hose clamp and the air cleaner, which is a hose clamp. All the other stuff can stay attached while you pull the float bowl and change jets

I. Not sure I understand why you want to change the carb. The rest of the engine is stock, so you don’t want to go to a bigger carb. A “high flow” carb is really just the carb you have with different jets, and different jets may not help you at all. Again the plug will give us a hint

btw, the guy that is charging you $75 is just going to swap the carb the same as you would, then set the mixture adjustment  which is just basicly two steps.

to set the mixture, you get the bike warmed up. Maybe a mile ride or so.  Then with the motor running, you adjust the throttle stop down to the lowest RPM the bike will stay running at.  The switch to the other side of the carb and adjust the mixture screw to get the highest RPM, then you are done!  You most likely will go back to the throttle stop, and adjust it up a bit somthe bike dosent stall,on hard breaking.

[ratdog]

$15 valve adjustment tool that make adjusting the valve a 5 min job instead of a half hour job





look at the “white part” of the plug.  This is what we would like yours to look like

[wahlman]

Thanks, can you post me the link for that valve adjustment tool? Def want to buy that.

I will do as you say, even with the carbs at 20$ each I may as well give it a try on my own.

I see all these reviews on Amazon that the new carb was just plug and play and that they had to do no modifications at all and all of them saying their scooters go 45 mph now.

You said "I would love to have you take the scoot out for a long high speed run, and shut it off with the throttle open". How would I be able to accomplish such a thing since there is no way to put the transmission into Neutral so if I WOT it, you mean for me to use the emergency cut-off switch and then just let it roll into my driveway? I did not even think that was possible with a CVT transmission.

Even my car is stick-shift so I dont know next to nothing about CVT transmissions, sorry about that.  

[ratdog]

Well you pretty much got it. Get in some high speed riding (the more the better). As you come home, with the throttlestill wide open, slide the run switch to off and cost into the drive. I don’t care if the trans is still locked up for a few feet and the motor just spins down, I’m just trying to avoid the motor idleing.

Better pic of what we would like to see

[mrkswthwrth]

Heres an idea. Before you start it try twisting the throttle to WOT a few times then start it with throttle closed. the accelerator pump will squirt a little gas into the carb and prime it.

I have gotten into the habbit of doing this with all my carbed engines.

If this helps then I'd say richen up the idle mixture screw, or maybe change the pilot jet to one size up.

[benji]

That spark plug looks crazy rich to me.

[ratdog]

You are looking at the insulator, not the electrote. Right? If you don’t have a tan insulator, I’m going to say you are lean

But hey, each to his own. The pic is a little dark because the camera shut down a bit to compensate for the bright background. So in reality it is a little lighter, but still tan. “Crazy rich” would have a black insulator

[ratdog]

You have to look at the insulator, nothing else. The pug I shot a pic of was not from a plug chop (that gives much better results) but from a driven daily correctly jetted scoot. Because it’s not from a plug chop. The day to day driving means that part of the plug shows the effects of it idleing which is much richer than the 12.5 to 1 I look for from the main jet