Scooty Puff Jr, Welcome Home

I can’t help it, I’m addicted to petrol engines. Somehow, out of the blue I seem to have added a Scooter to the fleet.

So long story short, a friend of my better half was commenting that her scooter was being a pain in the bum and she didn’t know what to do with it. There were jokes made about getting rid of it, and a couple of days later, I was on my way to pick it up.

After work on Friday I jumped in the S401, being my only car with a towbar, and went in hunt of a trailer. I found what I needed at a local Z station, and for the first time in my life I hooked a trailer to a car. It was just a basic flat trailer with low sides, but its all I needed. I also grabbed some ratchet straps from Bunnings.

Having never driven with a trailer before, I was a tad nervous, but it’s not rocket science. I made sure not to clobber anything with the trailer, and wound my way up through the narrow streets of Newlands. Of course I overshot the street, so had to do a u-turn…. and then I overshot the house, so had to do another u-turn, and then when I tried to back the trailer onto the property (which is at a weird, blind angle) but it just wouldn’t work, so I had to do ANOTHER u-turn. In the end I parked on the footpath to load the trailer.

I made it home with only one incident. Cruising along the motorway at the legally mandated speed of 90KPH I look in the mirror and see the damn seat has flipped open. I didn’t want to risk the seat breaking off and clobbering some poor motorist in the windscreen, so I pulled over and tried to shut it. I didn’t manage to work out the catch, so cruised the rest of the way to Petone at 80KPH and then went the slower, back way home, off the motorway.

I had never backed a trailer, especially down a driveway. I channelled my inner Euro Truck Simulator, and somehow managed to get the trailer down the driveway, and around the 90 degree bend.

Yup, that’s a super limited edition S401 STI hauling a trailer with a scooter on it. It makes the perfect hauler. Nothing like boosting past other cars in second gear, pulling a load. Mean.

Anyway, the scooter is a 2007 Suzuki SJ50QT. A two-stroke, single cylinder engine with a CVT trans.

I was told the brake was broken (broken lever), the dash doesn’t work (hopefully wiring), the mirrors are broken off and the tyres were flat. Nothing too serious, it’s been a daily commuter for the past 7 years or so, and by the looks of it, spent some time living outside, like most scooters. It has been sitting for about the past 6 months.

I didn’t have much time to check the scooter when I got it home, needed to get the trailer back it was dark by the time I got home again.

Today I spent some time looking over it. Overall impression is that it’s done 12,000km (roughly, I don’t know if the odo still works) and looks it. Unfortunately the battery was flat, so the starter wouldn’t turn the engine over. It also wouldn’t start easily on the kick starter.

There was a bottle of two-stroke oil under the seat. I’m not sure if it’s what was being used or not, but it wasnt a full bottle.

Now, here’s the interesting thing. When is a moped not a scooter, and a scooter not a moped?

When it has an oil injection system, apparently. Bit of a weird small print to have on there, seeing as a heck of a lot of mopeds/scooters have oil injection, I find it hard to understand why it specifies “Moped” on the front of the bottle.

The oil is very thick, much thicker than what I’m running in the Mustang. Obviously it’s too thick for the oil injection system. I used a large syringe to suck all the oil out of the oil tank, and a lot of that thick clear oil came out of the tank.

I went to Supercheap and picked up a bottle of Valvoline 2 Stroke oil

This oil is designed for use in an oil injection system, or premix. Compared to the Shell stuff, its much thinner. I filled the tank with the new oil, but the engine still isn’t running good.

Occasionally it will start, but it’s super smokey and despite the fact it revs OK, after a few seconds the engine just winds down and shuts off.

Most of the time though it either wont start at all, or when its does it idles badly, and when you try giving it gas it dies, or if you leave it, it’ll die.

I tried replacing the spark plug to see if it would help. It’s easy to get at, just one screw to remove the covering panel and then you have access to the spark plug and boot.

The old plug was VERY ugly. Lots of buildup, and very oily. In went a new one.

I suspect something is meant to go here. Might have to somehow make a duct.

The next job was to check the battery and see if I can jump start the scoot.

The battery lives behind this cover on the RH side.

It’s a 4MM hex to remove the one screw. The battery is bloody tiny, no wonder they always seem to give trouble on these things.

Due to its design I obviously couldn’t just connect a jump starter to the terminals, as they are covered by the connector. I ended up using some spare heavy gauge wire and sticking it in the back of the terminal against the pins, and connecting it to the jump pack.

Worked like a charm, the engine cranked over well but still wouldn’t start properly.

I tried pulling the air filter out to check its condition. The filter was soaked in two-stroke oil, but otherwise in good shape. I removed it completely and tried to start the engine, still no luck. What I did find that worked for a bit was completely choking the intake with a rag. This seemed to richen the mixture up, and it ran better. Not good, but better.

This leads me to believe that the carb isn’t working correctly and I’m not getting enough fuel. I removed some of the side trims to check that the petcock was working correctly, and fuel was getting through it when the engine was cranking over, so that’s good.

The carb lives up here, with limited access, but I’ll need to pull it out and give it a proper clean.

So that’s where I’m at. I need to buy some bits, and I need to strip the carb to clean it out.

I did notice this though…. On one side its says 4.7KW, on the other it has this badge. Maybe I have the elusive restrictor plate in the exhaust? I’ll have a look once I have used the scoot as it is for a while and see what difference it makes.

I’m looking forward to getting it running and hooning around on it. Its been a long time since I was last on two wheels, so it should be a bit of fun.