New member and new scoot with a lot of questions! Thunder 50

[FrankenMech]

$5 was probably worth it just for another spare part to have around. Kick the BF the next time he bothers your scooter and make HIM pay for the $5 part. Remember the man is always wrong. I learned this from being married for 36 years.

[paulmohr]

I don't want to sound sexist, but I just noticed your a girl. I think that is soo cool that you are wrenching on your own scooter.

As for the speed, 20 mph is pretty slow, it should be able to do 30 fairly easy on a flat road. Did you fix the speedometer or are you guessing at the speed?

When it tops out at 20mph is revving high, or does it sound like it is struggling? Revving high should be sort of a high pitched WAAAA WAAAAA. Bogging down would be a few octaves lower and more of a baaaw baaaw sound.

I think the first thing I would check would be vlave adjustment and spark plug gap. And take a look at the plug to see if its lean or rich. If you are not sure you can post a picture here and someone can look at it for you. If its dark and wet it is rich.

Next I would be looking at fuel or air restrictions.

It could also be something in the CVT, if the weight is too low or the belt or clutch is slipping then it will rev high but not go very fast. If it bogging down the weights might be too high and/or the its reaching high gear too fast. It would be sort of like starting out in 3rd gear.

And has it always been this slow, or did it suddenly start going slower than it did when you first got it?

As for my camshaft, I can't really give you much feedback because the one I bought seems to be about the same as the one I replaced it with lol. I think I may have had an aftermarket cam in before they brought it to me. I had them put a 80cc kit on mine before they even delivered it to me so they may have changed the cam and not told me. I didn't buy an A-9 cam either, I thought it did, but I didn't. It is just a Hoca performance cam.

The best I can do is tell you what was done to mine and how it performs. 80cc bbk, performance cam, 19mm carb, 7gram roller weights and 1500 rpm clutch springs. I weigh 150 lbs. My scooter will cruise about 40 mph on flat ground, do about 35 uphill and 45-50 down hill. Sometimes it will cruise around 45 if its really flat and there is no wind. It does 0-30 in around 10 sec. And I have not fine tuned the carb jetting yet, I just tossed a #90 in it when I got the new carb to make sure it wasn't running too lean.

I hope we can get this figured out for you and at least get it up to 30mph average for you.

[mlsmllwd]

Before responding to you paulmohr, I actually have to post about a problem. I was driving my scooter the other day when the throttle handle started sliding off the metal handle bar frame. The scooter kept accelerating because I guess the throttle was turning itself, and even though I tried braking with both sides the scooter was still accelerating due to whatever grip I had on the throttle side. I let it go and was going slow enough to basically hop off without injury but in addition to the obvious throttle problems I now have, my wheel is misaligned! Something about it is scraping too tightly whenever I try to turn the handle bars to the left. The front wheel is sitting at more of an angle "\" than it should "|" and when riding the scooter, I can see the silver spokes on the right side of the front wheel.

This is an album of pictures drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B50-QSDAtcDpa2Y0aVk5ZGpNaTg&usp=sharing

I'm not sure if these will be good enough. Looking directly at the bike, the piece of metal attached to the handle bar portion of the scooter seems to be scraping. The third picture in that album, you can see toward the bottom of the picture where the black paint is being scraped off with handle rotation.

In the "wheel" pictures, the L and R are in respect to looking at the bike, not being on it. Toward the bottom of the 'steering column' (if you will) the black bar isn't evenly spaced above the metal ring. The right side has maybe a 1mm gap between the metal pieces but the left side the black metal bar and silver ring are touching.

I don't know if these are the cause of my steering problems or not, but any suggestions on places to adjust would be helpful. I don't know what to do to fix the alignment even if these places I've found ARE the problem.

[mlsmllwd]

The scooter has always been this slow. I fixed the speedometer (this cable is interestingly only about 3mph off) and also was checking my speed using GPS speedometer apps on my cell phone.

I'd adjusted the valves the day before the scooter messed up so I haven't ridden much on it with the new settings... I'll check the spark plug.

The CVT isn't something I've really looked at much yet. I'll have to ride around a bit more and just pay attention to how it sounds and I'll get back to you (assuming I can fix the alignment).

[FrankenMech]

I can't see much in the pictures but it sounds like something is broken or has come loose in the steering. I don't know much about how that part of a regular scooter is set up. I have two front wheels so the front end of my scoot is entirely different.

The throttle assy just needs to be put back together and tightened up. I suppose a screw could be stripped out also and the assy would need to be replaced. They are readily available from parts suppliers. Most likely the wires from any switches would just plug right in if the same switches are on the new assy. They come in several variations.

[90GTVert]

It seems like you may have bent something, like the steering stem. That's the part that holds the forks, goes through the tube on the frame, and up to connect to the handlebars. I've replaced 2 bent ones before. One was from a pretty significant crash of mine. Another was a friend who let his girlfriend try the scoot in his yard and as I understand it the crash was only at about 5MPH when she hit a tree root in the ground and fell off. I've heard others report very minor incidents bending them at times too. You could make sure that the nuts securing the steering stem to the tube are secure, but that should just cause play in the steering if not so I don't think that's going to be the cause.

[mlsmllwd]

Steering stem sounds/looks like the problem. Guess I'll get on that and hope it's my fix *sigh*

I just wish I could've at least broken my scooter with an accident of sorts that was my own fault, rather than it being new and falling to pieces. Haha

[mlsmllwd]

drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B50-QSDAtcDpa2Y0aVk5ZGpNaTg&usp=sharing

A, B, C, and balls are the pictures relevant to today in that folder.

I've taken the front of the scooter apart. Looking at picture A, the vertical bar is at an angle. B and C are taken from above and show this view as if you were driving the scooter. Must I replace that entire piece, the bar as well as the C shape at the bottom or do they come apart? Is the top the steering stem and the bottom a separate piece? If so, what is its name?

In picture A it is sort of noticeable but I actually realize now I forgot to take a specific shot of it... the gap just inside and below the gold circles that was held together by a bolt--I've taken out the bolt but even before doing so, the left gap is greater than the right gap (looking at scooter). Is that part of my problem? (does that question make sense?)

How should I go about replacing these things and based on what you can see of my damage, what is it exactly that I need to replace?

Thank you guys!!

Edit: I lost one ball, where can I get a bag of replacement ones, anywhere or just online?

[90GTVert]

That's one piece that you'll need to replace as a whole. The shocks will come out, but the long stem and the chunk of metal that the shocks are in are the steering stem.

I'd say pic A makes it pretty clear that the stem is bent and needs to be replaced. Unless someone here can tell you exactly which stem you need, you'll have to take measurements and compare to stems you find online or see what kind of price a dealer can offer. You can buy the whole bearing/cage assembly. Pretty sure ScrappyDogScooters carries them and prob many online sellers. Local scooter shops or even bicycle shops may have something.

[FrankenMech]

Loose ball bearings can be purchased at some hardware stores. They won't function like a matched set that comes with a bearing.