Now I get the point

It was a cold but sunny day, the first rain free days in weeks, So I chanced a ride to see how the minor adjusting went, quick answer is, a mixed result.
It burst into life on the fourth kick only to die and not start again, I went through the usual things and eventually got it running, I rode to the end of the drive and onto the road, up the hill, She went well, felt better, so I decided it would be ok to head into town and knock out a few kms. I avoided any traffic lights that involved stopping for a while as I still had to have the throttle slightly cracked to keep it going, after about 30kms I decided to head home, I got to the bottom of theis big hill and she just died, I gave it a couple of kicks to no avail and thought pushing it home from here is really going to suck, about 2kms all up hill, I decided to give it one last try and pushed it halfway up the hill in front of me and turned around and bump started it, it clicked along burping for about 50 metres before it finally started, I headed straight home, but it ran so well I decided to go back into town for a bit longer, such a waste of a nice day, foolish decision? maybe, but it paid off and I did another 20 kms and rode home with no further problems.
Once home I just let it sit over lunch and went to put it away, I tried to kick it to see if it would start, second kick, wow and then it died not to be started, I got her back into the workshop and began pulling the cowls off to have a look, a scooter aficionado, Kelvin, Kickstart Scooters in Brisbane suggested I check the points, the only thing I haven't checked in all this and his advice has gotten me out of trouble a few times over the course of all this, I had trouble seeing them gap in the dimly lit workshop  so I pulled off the flywheel.....Bingo the points were pitted slightly and a teeny piece had dislodged and stuck to the opposite point, meaning they weren't disengaging properly when the flywheel came around, I was surprised it worked at all, So I proceeded to clean them up with some fine wet and dry until they looked ok, I will replace them when I get a chance, but they will still do the job in the mean time, now to wait until the next sunny day to see.....

rain rain

I was still having starting issues and decided to give the carb a good and proper clean out this time, I didn't find anything in the process, I changed out the gasket from in between the airbox and carb , threw in a different needle, I soaked it and blew it through with carb cleaner but I'm not convinced that the cab is the culprit, I did find that the plug gap was well above what it should have been, so I sorted that and put it all back together, I couldn't do any more than this as the persistent rain meant that going for a ride wouldn't be much fun and gassing myself in the small workshop wasn't an option either, once the sun shines again I'll give it another run.
In the mean time I went and got my push bike out of the storage unit and began giving it some much needed love.

Almost right again

I gave the jets another clean and took it out yesterday for a quick run, she went pretty well and started second kick which surprised me, I ended up doing around 25kms and the only hiccup was when going around a corner and perhaps not selecting the right gear, giving it some out of the corner and a couple of times she complained a little by jumping and missing but would soon recover and away we'd go. I'm going to leave it alone now and see how it goes, I'll start riding into work again on the days the weather is favorable and take on the next problem as it arises.

cough splutter burp

I got to look into the starting and idling problems over the weekend, I have a good spark and I know the fuel is getting there as the plug is fouling, the idle is OK but just dies after a minute or two, unless I feather the throttle, I thought Id throw in the old idle jet from the smaller carb I had on it originally, It did idle better and longer but still died. I went for a short ride up the road and she began to stutter and died, I got a few bursts of life trying to get going again, but I eventually rolled/pushed it back the 500m back home, it was for this reason I decided to go up the hill and not down it.
I got back to the shed and decided to give her a birthday since I was most likely going to pull the carb out anyway, I changed the gear oil, I checked and cleaned the plug, it was a little browner than it was after the plug chop, but I did notice that the little nipple on the end was loose? a possible cause? I re-torqued the cylinder head nuts too, which did seem a little loose to me, there was a small leak at the base of the head, another likely cause of the starting problem, low compression.
I disconnected the carb and pulled it down, I found no obvious blockages, there was some crap below the filter screen though, I blew out all the jets and holes as best I could and put it all back together. I did the same run up the hill and it ran a little better, still feels like there is a fuel delivery issue, just seemed to miss every now and then and the acceleration was lacking towards the top of the range 80kmph and up, getting to eighty wasn't a problem, she pulled hard through the gears. I got back and the first thing I did was pull the plug, it was clean as a whistle, it's a new plug, this worries me a bit that I might be a bit lean It still wont idle for long so I set about adjusting the throttle cable nipple along about 3-4mm to open the slide just a small bit at idle and give me some room for idle adjustment, this seemed to work and the idle problem seemed done with. I ran out of daylight so decided to call it a day until the morning.
I checked the weather and decided to ride the Sprint to work, it started after four kicks, OK since it was a cold frosty morning, idle was a tad fast but I would adjust that when the engine was warm. I rode out and down toward town, same running issues as yesterday, so I turned around in case she died and I didn't feel like pushing it home up the hill first thing Monday morning, It didn't stop but I had to keep the revs up and the clutch grabbing to turn around, I lifted the front wheel twice turning around, once home I shut it off and will look at it when I get home, I then proceeded to start the GT200 take off and perform a rear wheel spin 180 degrees and layed it down on the cold wet soft ground.....no harm done but would've looked pretty funny, note to self. Don't give it too much on the wet grass until you get going....

Bit quiet

Sorry, just haven't had the time or the weather to do anything of late, I pulled and cleaned out the jets, tidied up the plug, I have gone back to reset the carb, now I just need to get a short ride in to warm it up and fine tune it, I want to sort the idle issue out, got a good spark and fuel supply is good.
Will get to it in the next few days, I want to take it down to the club meet in Geelong in a couple of weeks, give it a good hit out.

Another milestone problem.

It was a good weekend for riding, cold but dry, I did another fuel usage test and came out with 25.3 kms per litre, I also found out that my tank only holds about 6 litres? sure it should be 7.7, I almost ran out of juice, the level was about an inch above the bottom and when I topped up I put 5.5 in.
On the way home I have a reasonable hill long and continuous grade and I sat on 80 the whole way up, at the top I clutched in and cut the engine and pulled over to have a look at the plug, not as brown as normal, but more of a grey colour, dry and clean. This is where the problem started, I put the plug back in and kicked it into life, she's been a 2-3 kick start since being back in one piece, three this time from a hot start, odd. I had only 200 metres to home so I putted back, In the property I was down to second and just bleeping it to roll round to the shed, I noticed it was running rough.
This morning I must have kicked it 10 times before I got a response, another 3-4 before she started and there was something not right, like she was firing out of whack, mostly running OK but every so often it would skip and be a louder, I didn't have time to go any further into it because I had to leave for work. So I'll have a play when I get a chance, I think the cause may be from when I cut the engine I held the kill switch in for a bit and this may still be contacting while the vibration of the idle shakes the crap out of the bike. It's been running fine and this is the only thing that has been different.

The milestone was 5000kms on the clock, 600 on the new kit, I'm half expecting that she's angling to get back in the shed since it's getting colder, she's not a morning bike for sure.

Positives and Negatives

Another decent weekend of riding, 123 kms and a good chance to check the fuel consumption, I used 4.5 litres over the two days and an outcome of 27.2 km per litre seems ok to me. Still never really opened her up further than 80 on the clock, and about half throttle, riding was mostly around town with some open road stuff as well, a couple of hills. The power comparison to before the kit still surprises me, this brings the new kit kms up to approx. 445 and just shy of 4850kms in total.
I had noticed a rattle, or more of a vibration, and it was getting worse, I decided to go down to the lake to stretch my legs, check the tank and the time and I went to pull her up onto the stand and it was all over the place, I got down to see that on the left hand side the nuts holding the stand bracket on had vibrated loose and fallen off, the bracket was wedged in there behind the stand but as I was reaching the high end of the rev range on each gear she was screaming at me, I pulled the bracket and the bolts out and rode up to the local hardware, replaced the nuts and spring washers in the carpark, I needed the guy from the shop to hold the scooter for me to get the bolts in place and I was good to go, no more noise, it was nice.
Once home I topped up the fuel, checked the plug, it looked fine, and decided to do a quick nut and bolt check, I'm glad I did. All the hub and rim nuts were tight, but the back wheel had some play in it, I tried to get the pin out but the nut had turned enough that I had to break the pin off and tighten the nut slightly to get it out. Sheeesh......
I did the nut up with the strength of five men, well as tight as I could possibly do it, put the biggest split pin that I could fit in there, the one I had was taken out was only slightly smaller and will now do a check on it every time I get on it