The steaming pile of Tao Tao

[cwazywazy]

Here's the story: Someone crashed it a lot and it went into storage for a couple years. Don't you love that old gas smell? Picked this thing up earlier, guess I might as well make a thread for it. Don't really know what to do with it, might get it running better and harvest some parts for my Peace and sell it or something. Didn't run while the guy was showing it to me, bought it anyway, got home, and it fired up. It runs, I guess..




Yeah. Drilled out the sealed carb, cleaned the jets, and popped them into a good carb. Still runs just like this so I guess I have to drain the tank. I think there's something up with the clutch. It's discolored but I couldn't easily pull any of the pads out so I dunno.. Can't get it revved up anyway.

[stepthrutuner]

Yes. That running condition is called JohnDeering. Needs a good ol' boy to have compassion on a neglected Chinese refugee.

[cwazywazy]

It came with sunglasses and a skateboard wheel in the pocket. What a deal.

[gsx600racer]

Yup, she looks a bit used and abused. I worked on a scooter this past winter where the owner tried replacing the belt and didn't understand the concept of what the rollers did. I like how the belt is at the top of the variator pulley vs the bottom.

If anything you got yourself a parts bike.

[cwazywazy]

Apr 2, 2016 22:40:55 GMT -5 gsx600racer said:

 I like how the belt is at the top of the variator pulley vs the bottom.

Just now saw that. The hell? The guy was talking about how "the belt needs to be reconnected" or some shit..

[gsx600racer]

Yup, you should have a nice surprise behind the variator.

Iv been there before with a customers scooter.

[cwazywazy]

Okay, so, took the variator off and how the hell did the rollers get there? They were pretty gouged up and had flat spots so I put in 5g sliders and threw it back together. CVT seems to work okay, but the engine still won't rev up. It'll idle for a minute or two but that's about it. Took the valve cover off and the exhaust valve was tight so I fixed that. Figured I might as well delete the evap system or whatever it is while I was there. Did that by cutting the pipe, crimping it the best I could, and filling what was left of the hole with solder. (I couldn't find the one from my main scooter, which had the system that wasn't integrated with the valve cover so I was able to block off the pipe by shoving a pen cap in it..) The oil was really low so I decided to just dump more in instead of changing it. Put in too much by accident and turned it into a smoke machine. When I drained a bit out to get it to the right level the oil that came out was pretty nasty, even with more than half of it being fresh Rotella.. Glittery too.

So, yeah, why won't it run right? Is it really the gas or is it something else?

[thatcrazyguy]

I'd suggest checking the fuel filter, replace lines , and replace the fuel petcock as well as clean the tank very thoroughly!

[cwazywazy]

I drained the yellow piss out of the tank and filled it up with fresh-ish gas. Had to unplug the enricher and completely tape the airbox inlet to get it to the point that I could ride it at all. It's horrifyingly bad. The steering is offset, suspension is bad, and it's SO SLOW. It only works up til about half throttle and after that it just dies. So, yeah, probably has an air leak somewhere..

[cwazywazy]

Also the speedo was broken, so it probably has more than 3600km...

[gsx600racer]

Apr 3, 2016 12:15:52 GMT -5 cwazywazy said:

Okay, so, took the variator off and how the hell did the rollers get there? They were pretty gouged up and had flat spots so I put in 5g sliders and threw it back together. CVT seems to work okay, but the engine still won't rev up. It'll idle for a minute or two but that's about it. Took the valve cover off and the exhaust valve was tight so I fixed that. Figured I might as well delete the evap system or whatever it is while I was there. Did that by cutting the pipe, crimping it the best I could, and filling what was left of the hole with solder. (I couldn't find the one from my main scooter, which had the system that wasn't integrated with the valve cover so I was able to block off the pipe by shoving a pen cap in it..) The oil was really low so I decided to just dump more in instead of changing it. Put in too much by accident and turned it into a smoke machine. When I drained a bit out to get it to the right level the oil that came out was pretty nasty, even with more than half of it being fresh Rotella.. Glittery too.

So, yeah, why won't it run right? Is it really the gas or is it something else?

Yup, They were installed Bonneville Salt Flats style. High speed only. 

[cwazywazy]

Took a long while for it to stop smoking after I drained the excess oil.. My Peace Sports never did this and the oil was overfilled by the previous owner to the point that it was leaking out the airbox..

[90GTVert]

You might want to look at the front suspension and steering stem. Steering stems bend fairly easily in crashes and will make the front wheel and handlebar directions not match up. Even if you can deal with riding it, I don't trust them once damaged.

[cwazywazy]

Did a lot of stuff today. Started off with throwing on my old modded airbox and took the carb off to upjet. There was a piece of plastic in the main.. Guessed which jets would work well and gave it a quick idle tune. Runs great now. (I think I used an 88 MJ?) Then I worked on the dash/gauges. The headlight was left dangling and the low beam filament wasn't working. Found another headlight bulb which happened to be the same one and threw that in. The reason the speedo wasn't working was the cable so I just used the old cable off my good scoot. Works fine now, but I had to cut the old dash bits from my Peace to fit somewhat acceptably, and I had to use the gauges from it too since the Tao one wouldn't fit. All this means is that the motor has about 3000 less KMs on it than it used to...


















Works really nicely now. Did some riding around the neighborhood, got the speedo to nearly 45. Did some offroading, wheelies, burnouts, etc. Even managed to do a donut on the dry driveway.

[190mech]

Good work!Youve brought a turd back to life,,hope it makes somebody happy!!