Tools

[Fox]

So I was working on a Lance Charming 50cc 4T and I went to adjust the idle air screw and I had to drill a hole in the side of the foot panel so as to avoid removing all sorts of body panels. Great design by the way Lance! (Sarcastic)

Anyway, after drilling the hole, my 10 inch screwdriver was still an inch short so I ended up having to do it the hard way anyway so I looked like a fool.

Long story short, I swore: "NEVER AGAIN!" so on the way home I went and found two 20" screwdrivers (one flat one #2 Phillips) in the bargain bin at the local O'reilly"s auto parts (formerly Kragen/Oreilly) for less than 5 bucks for the pair! Definitely made in China. :rockon:

I suggest all you mech's out there get a pair of these too. The flat driver was a bit wide and thick for 4T mixture screws so I ground it down a little on the bench grinder. Now it's the cat's ass.

Here's where I drilled the scoot:



The drivers look like this pretty much. The handles are different.

[90GTVert]

I actaully remove all of the panels or sometimes just the side panel depending how much I'm doing to the carb. The side panel should come off with 3-4 screws and the connection to the turn signal. My SunL and Venus (and a billion other retros) are the same kinda setup. Those long screwdrivers do come in handy sometimes though.

[2strokd]

Cool, glad ya got it.
I had a screw hole drilled in a scooter. I thought "WTF was this person that
lazy" as i stuck my hand through the access panel on the front. Of course you couldnt
do that so i understand....I still woulda pulled the panel or took the seat bucket out.
Dont get me wrong tho, im glad you got it and got a deal on drivers. Now you can screw
from a distance!!! Sorry, had too.

[Fox]

I started to remove the panels but the guy was right there hovering over me watching. I suggested drilling a hole to save me time and him money and he agreed. I think the damn thing shoulda already had a friggin" hole drilled there in the factory for adjusting that screw. I mean why have an adjustment screw you can't reach? On that scoot the body panels are a bitch. Just ask Brent. He'll tell you. When all was said and done the guy gave me $80 and I was only there an hour so I think he liked the results. The hole is very small and I'm sure it didn't de-value the plastic any and furthermore, if I or anyone needs to adjust the mixture in the future again it'll be easy as hell.

I say work smart not hard. Drilling a hole is smart. Not having a long screwdriver wasn't so smart so I immediately got one on the way home.

[90GTVert]

One reason they probably don't have a hole is because it often seems everything is generic among scooter body parts and 2Ts and 4Ts have the screws in different spots. The hole is a good idea. I just remove everything and leave it off until it's done, but I am usually doing jets or needle adjustments etc... and it just can't really be done without removing stuff sometimes.

It's not necessarily a problem that it takes a long time to do the panels, but some of them fit together pretty snug and if you aren't careful you could crack or scratch something. For that reason it makes sense if the customer is up for it or on a personal scoot. Ther first time I worked on the Venus when it belonged to someone else, the owner complained of a 1/8" gap between two panels. He was lucky nothing got broken and that it was that well put together if you ask me. lol Yet another reason it's hard to work on Chinese scoots for profit sometimes.

[Fox]

Right! The Venus is a copy of the old Yamaha Vino 2 stroke and the Charming is the same thing with a 139QMB. The plastics are a pain in the butt not because it's complicated so much but because you can break the little snap-in tangs easily and then they don't lock in as well. It's really just a bad design. You can actually trim some plastic off the seat tub and it'll pull out like any other one but that's not something you suggest to a client so it's only really an option on a personal scoot as you stated already Brent.

It really is a crappy design I mean to get the seat tub out you have to remove every panel from the foot board on back. Lame...

[Fox]

Here's the old school 2T Vino:

[2strokd]

I agree!
I hate some of the little tabs on the plastic!

[shakerdriver]

I owned an 02 vino and hated that thing when I needed to work on it. Like you said Fox, every stinking panel has to come off. I got rid of it and I'll be damned if my wife didn't go get another one of those bas****s in the form of a L/C 4t 07 honda metropolitan, luckily its been running great and haven't had to open it up yet.