End of Season Overview

October 4, 2010
When I get to October and the first cold weather settles in (it's 45 degrees out right now) I have to look at my equipment and see what it needs over the Winter to be ready to rumble when the warmer weather comes. Oh say, about the middle of May. The motorcycle is pretty much set, although it really could use a new set of spark plugs. The scooter, on the other hand, once again requires my attention over the snowy months. 
Sometime during June it started to leak oil. Not just a minor leak, mind you, but a good solid, splash on the floor and the underside of the scooter everytime it ran. I took off the valve cover at one point and replaced the cover gasket but that didn't help at all. I'm figuring that the base gasket is dribbling from crankcase pressure and pouring it out the bottom of the cylinder barrel. My first attack will be to retorque the cylinder head and hope it squashes down the gasket enough to make it stop, or at least slow down. Failing that I'll have to pull off the fan shroud (air from a fan circulates around the head and cylinder to cool it) and see if I can find the leak. I'll take measures from there to seal it.
They say that Chinese scooters are a process. I see what they mean.

Posted by Jim Zeiser.

 

Two Wheel Biathlon

September 27, 2010
I had the opportunity to do some errands the other day and not use my car for one single mile of the fifty miles that I traveled. The first part of the journey involved going to the veterinarian to pick up pills for my ten year old Yorkie. I don't need a great deal of cargo capacity for a pill bottle so the scooter was the perfect vehicle. It was a nice day besides and I had enough time that I didn't need to worry about the extra twenty or so minutes using it would take me over traversing the...
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Posted by Jim Zeiser.

 

Running With The Kaw

September 16, 2010
The last week has been a chance for me to actually "Take your motorcycle to work day". Not once, but twice. Now that doesn't sound like a big deal but for the occasions that I've been able to use it that was pretty good. Work is a fifty mile round trip and for the motorcycle that's less than a gallon of gas, while my car uses over two for the same trip. The only downside is that the trip home is in pitch darkness. There are no streetlights up here and my low beam is swallowed up by a black ho...
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Posted by Jim Zeiser.

 

A Very Busy Day

August 17, 2010
Money has been tight lately so when I had to do some traveling today I opted for the scooter. At seventy miles to the gallon it's the stingiest vehicle we own even if it's not the fastest. My first destination was a thirty mile round trip and included dropping off some forms at my wife's school for health insurance for me daughter. While I was there I checked about getting the scooter inspected and as luck would have it an opening was available. Putting the new rear tire on paid off as the sc...
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Posted by Jim Zeiser.

 

The Trip

June 13, 2010
Occasionally I take the scooter on some trips that may defy the imagination but I feel if I'm going to keep it around it will have to play host to my odd fancies. The short explanation for that is that I took it on a second near eighty mile round trip recently and it was a blast. Now as you can see by the picture over on the right I have a perfectly good long distance machine in the Kawasaki, but it does long trips with the same ease that it does short trips to the grocery store. The scooter,...
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Posted by Jim Zeiser.

 

Odd Phenomenon

June 7, 2010
Lately a very strange thing has been happening around here. My wife has been riding more than I have. I happened to be pushing her Honda into the garage and noticed that she had put about five hundred miles on the bike in the last month and a half. She's been using it to go work and taking it into Binghamton for visits to a therapist which add up to close to a hundred miles at a time. It's saving large miles on her car and she's enjoying the trips immensely.
I would never have pegged her to b...
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Posted by Jim Zeiser.

 

Hot Time In The Garage

June 2, 2010
One task I have to perform at the beginning of each riding season is checking the clearances of the valves on the scooter. If you've never had the honor of doing this task, you're lucky. Because Chinese scooters are coated in plastic panels it takes a good half hour to forty minutes to remove the battery and all the requisite panels to uncover the engine. Then there are vacuum and breather hoses, nuts and bolts and finally the valve cover to reveal the rocker arms and valves. You feel like In...
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Posted by Jim Zeiser.

 

A New Year

May 25, 2010
It's been awhile since I last wrote, but then winter here has been long too. I got out tonight on the Kawasaki and discovered what it was about riding at night that I disliked. Bugs. Not just a few bugs, but a hailstorm of insects coating my face shield, windshield and headlight. Worse was that when oncoming traffic lit me up with their headlights I was practically blind. It was better coming home when the air was cooler and the insect population had calmed down but I'll have to see how I can...
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Posted by Jim Zeiser.

 

A Growth Experience

September 27, 2009
When we bought the mopeds the idea was that my stepsons would start to travel on their own more often without having Mom and Stepdad transporting them in the car. Yesterday was the first step in that process. The oldest guy had volunteered to work at the concession stand at his High School football game and would need a ride into town. It was decided that the moped was a perfect means of transport so that when he was through he could just hop on the bike and ride home instead of calling and w...
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Posted by Jim Zeiser.

 

Sunday Scooter Stroll

September 13, 2009
 

To celebrate the nice weather I took the scooter out today for a nice little ride. Actually it was twenty-five miles so I don't know if you'd call it little. It's been a thousand miles since I repaired its engine and it's been running quite nicely since being put back together. It broke a valve spring and I had to remove the engine from the frame. It was apart for a month due to weather and getting the pieces together. Now it hums along and I haven't heard any strange sounds or noted any o...


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Posted by Jim Zeiser.

 
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Jim Zeiser If you wish to comment my e-mail address is h1500e@hotmail.com. I'd like to hear anything-good or bad-that anyone would like to say. As they said in college, we're all lifelong learners.

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