For the mechanically inclined...

[jrsjr]

Steve Elliot of BA motors has put up photographs of scooter problems ranging from user-mods gone wrong to shoddily manufactured parts. I found it extremely interesting. The pics are generally well labelled or self-explanatory.

Woops! Here is the link to the photo gallery. A little detail I forgot on the first try.

P.S. I do not mean to send anybody to the old scooter bbs. Please don't go there. However, SE did a really nice job on this photo gallery (and made it available completely separate from the bbs) so I think it's worth sharing.

[Howardr]

I love the variator with the rollers installed sideways!!!!

[ericalm]

I wonder how many of the cheap ass "wrong out of the factory" problems were found on scoots Big Ass sells?

I love the variator with the rollers installed sideways!!!!

It's weird that a couple are right. This scoot would probably run with the rollers like that!

Nightmare variator I saw being pulled from a scoot at NoHo: The rollers were down to the metal. One roller had totally broken apart and was just gone! The inside of the variator was trashed, totally nicked and scored and scraped up. This was on a high-mileage scoot that gets ridden every day. I couldn't believe the owner would let it get that bad. Probably made quite a noise.

[jrsjr]

I wonder how many of the cheap ass "wrong out of the factory" problems were found on scoots Big Ass sells?

I know, right? I'm especially suspicious of all those defective carb vacuum fittings. A scooter with that defect would not have been rideable ever. Therefore, as you say, that almost had to happen with the scooters BA was uncrating to sell. Still, there's a lot of interesting photos in that gallery. My fave since I'm an electrical engineer is the fused ground wire in the very first photograph. I have to believe that was connected by an owner. No factory did that did they???

[Kaos]

Is that a valve guide sitting on top of that GY6 head?!?!

Some of those are insane! But neat to look at when you know what they SHOULD look like.

[ericalm]

I wonder how many of the cheap ass "wrong out of the factory" problems were found on scoots Big Ass sells?

I know, right? I'm especially suspicious of all those defective carb vacuum fittings. A scooter with that defect would not have been rideable ever. Therefore, as you say, that almost had to happen with the scooters BA was uncrating to sell. Still, there's a lot of interesting photos in that gallery. My fave since I'm an electrical engineer is the fused ground wire in the very first photograph. I have to believe that was connected by an owner. No factory did that did they???

I like the inline fuse on that one. Um… Is there a scooter that actually ships with a fuse like that?

[jrsjr]

I wonder how many of the cheap ass "wrong out of the factory" problems were found on scoots Big Ass sells?

My fave since I'm an electrical engineer is the fused ground wire in the very first photograph. I have to believe that was connected by an owner. No factory did that did they???

I like the inline fuse on that one. Um… Is there a scooter that actually ships with a fuse like that?

I hope not. The problem is that if the "upstream" end of that fuse holder were accidentally shorted to ground (not at all hard to imagine in this case), then what they'd have is a hot circuit with no fuse protection because the fuse would have been shorted out of the circuit. This logic applies to a short anywhere further up the line from that incorrectly -placed fuseholder - a short results in a hot circuit with no fuse protection.

Think about every circuit you see in a well-made scooter like the Buddy or your LX. The circuit is always laid out as follows: Hot Terminal of Battery - Fuse - Load (lights, horn, ignition or whatever) - Ground. The fuse is never on the Ground side of the Load. Its one of those all-wrong wiring mistakes that would freak out an electrical person, like that valve guide sitting on top of the head would freak out a mechanic.

Edit: I'm sorry I did such a bad job of explaining this. Without chalk and a blackboard, I'm helpless.

[TVB]

Edit: I'm sorry I did such a bad job of explaining this. Without chalk and a blackboard, I'm helpless.

Not at all: I found it perfectly clear. You're saying that it's like putting the emergency cut-off on the drain instead of on the faucet.

[jrsjr]

Edit: I'm sorry I did such a bad job of explaining this. Without chalk and a blackboard, I'm helpless.

Not at all: I found it perfectly clear. You're saying that it's like putting the emergency cut-off on the drain instead of on the faucet.

Brilliant! Wish I'd said that.

[jrsjr]

P.S. I showed the battery wiring pic to another guy who has a much simpler explanation. He thinks the owner was wiring an accessory and pulled in a fused wire, but then mistakenly connected it to ground rather than the positive terminal of the battery. His explanation is simpler so I'm tempted to believe it. Also, he pointed out to me that those screws that anchor the battery holder strap may just be driven into the plastic battery box so that the wire may not actually be electrically connected to anything at that end. The more I think about it, the more I think the owner should have just left that job to the pros.

[Lostmycage]

P.S. I showed the battery wiring pic to another guy who has a much simpler explanation. He thinks the owner was wiring an accessory and pulled in a fused wire, but then mistakenly connected it to ground rather than the positive terminal of the battery. His explanation is simpler so I'm tempted to believe it. Also, he pointed out to me that those screws that anchor the battery holder strap may just be driven into the plastic battery box so that the wire may not actually be electrically connected to anything at that end. The more I think about it, the more I think the owner should have just left that job to the pros.

That was my first thought on that pic as well. It looks like a "kit" that has the bus fuse that's supposed to go in one of those clam shell translucent fuse holder cases, kinda like a cheap-o amplifier install kit for a car or something.

I bet the reason the owner brought it in was that their newly installed accessory wasn't working. Also, the liquid around the positive post on the battery is alarming.

Some people shouldn't be allowed to own tools, sort of like a sex offender list, but the victims are machines. That person will strike again! Hopefully it'll be on their own machine, though.

I have no idea what kind of person I'd be if I didn't understand mechanical things like I do. Seeing stuff like this boggles me.

[Cheshire]

Some of it is still a mystery to me, but I've learned enough lately to be properly freaked out. I figure if I look at those pictures in another month or so I'll twitch at all of them.

[Lil Buddy]

Its one of those all-wrong wiring mistakes that would freak out an electrical person

I have been doing a lot of home remodel work for the past year. Not on my house but for a friend. They started having all kinds of electrical issues around the house. They had someone come in and swap out most of the old noob and tube wiring with 14/2. Its crazy to see some of the things this person did. Most of the outlets have the hot and neutral reversed. They striped some hot wires up in the attic to add more light, but never bothered to reinsulate the wire. That might explain the dead rat that I found inches away from the bare wire. But the worst was when they added an exhaust fan near a bathroom light. They used a totally uninsulated ground wire for the hot wire. And didn't bother to ground the fan. WTF?

[scootertuner1000]

I fix and tune scooters for a living. What I see almost every day is scooters that have been messed with by their wannabe mechanics, who really don't have a clue what they are doing.

Most of the Chinese scooters that people call junk are not Junk, those days (5-10 years ago) are long gone.
The problems I see are things wired up wrong, by the owner not the factory and they burn out the whole wiring loom or never had an oil change, or worse still no engine oil (on 4 strokes) or no 2T oil on 2 strokes, never had a service, botched tuning attempts with the thread on the end of the crankshaft stripped (when changing weights) because it was over torqued or cross threaded. People who change the belt themselves after the original has snapped and don't take the variator off to do it (like putting on a bicycle chain) and then wonder why there's no pick up (because the weights are stuck because of the belt snapping and need to be put back into the ramps properly which you can only do when take the variator off) and lots of other things besides. All of these things are the owner's fault. Invariably the customer slags the scooter off as being Chinese junk, which simply isn't true. It's their own stupidity and lack of mechanical ability that has led to the problem and not mfg defects.
I am so sick of people spouting the Chinese junk crap, it is these days, simply untrue and an excuse for hamfisted wannabe mechanics.
Change the hoses and double check all the electrical connections are tight when you first get a Chinese scooter and it will run every bit as well as a Taiwanese, Korean or European scooter and just a little under that of a Japanese scoot.

[Kaos]

I fix and tune scooters for a living. What I see almost every day is scooters that have been messed with by their wannabe mechanics, who really don't have a clue what they are doing.

Most of the Chinese scooters that people call junk are not Junk, those days (5-10 years ago) are long gone.
The problems I see are things wired up wrong, by the owner not the factory and they burn out the whole wiring loom or never had an oil change, or worse still no engine oil (on 4 strokes) or no 2T oil on 2 strokes, never had a service, botched tuning attempts with the thread on the end of the crankshaft stripped (when changing weights) because it was over torqued or cross threaded. People who change the belt themselves after the original has snapped and don't take the variator off to do it (like putting on a bicycle chain) and then wonder why there's no pick up (because the weights are stuck because of the belt snapping and need to be put back into the ramps properly which you can only do when take the variator off) and lots of other things besides. All of these things are the owner's fault. Invariably the customer slags the scooter off as being Chinese junk, which simply isn't true. It's their own stupidity and lack of mechanical ability that has led to the problem and not mfg defects.
I am so sick of people spouting the Chinese junk crap, it is these days, simply untrue and an excuse for hamfisted wannabe mechanics.
Change the hoses and double check all the electrical connections are tight when you first get a Chinese scooter and it will run every bit as well as a Taiwanese, Korean or European scooter and just a little under that of a Japanese scoot.

While I totally agree that much of the problems most people have are owner stupidity, and that Chinese bikes are slowly improving in quality, I disagree that ALL Chinese bikes are good now... I was just given an '06 Diamo Retro with a motor thats sezed at 500Mi(This was the owner's fault) but the build quality of this bike is horrid. Very thin poorly painted plastic panels, and a frame that flexes due to some bad welds that I had to re-inforce. Its a cheap bike. Its not the end of the world for what it is, and it will run again, but it'll never be a quality bike.

Not trying to argue, just showing the other side of the coin

[scootertuner1000]

I fix and tune scooters for a living. What I see almost every day is scooters that have been messed with by their wannabe mechanics, who really don't have a clue what they are doing.

Most of the Chinese scooters that people call junk are not Junk, those days (5-10 years ago) are long gone.
The problems I see are things wired up wrong, by the owner not the factory and they burn out the whole wiring loom or never had an oil change, or worse still no engine oil (on 4 strokes) or no 2T oil on 2 strokes, never had a service, botched tuning attempts with the thread on the end of the crankshaft stripped (when changing weights) because it was over torqued or cross threaded. People who change the belt themselves after the original has snapped and don't take the variator off to do it (like putting on a bicycle chain) and then wonder why there's no pick up (because the weights are stuck because of the belt snapping and need to be put back into the ramps properly which you can only do when take the variator off) and lots of other things besides. All of these things are the owner's fault. Invariably the customer slags the scooter off as being Chinese junk, which simply isn't true. It's their own stupidity and lack of mechanical ability that has led to the problem and not mfg defects.
I am so sick of people spouting the Chinese junk crap, it is these days, simply untrue and an excuse for hamfisted wannabe mechanics.
Change the hoses and double check all the electrical connections are tight when you first get a Chinese scooter and it will run every bit as well as a Taiwanese, Korean or European scooter and just a little under that of a Japanese scoot.

While I totally agree that much of the problems most people have are owner stupidity, and that Chinese bikes are slowly improving in quality, I disagree that ALL Chinese bikes are good now... I was just given an '06 Diamo Retro with a motor thats sezed at 500Mi(This was the owner's fault) but the build quality of this bike is horrid. Very thin poorly painted plastic panels, and a frame that flexes due to some bad welds that I had to re-inforce. Its a cheap bike. Its not the end of the world for what it is, and it will run again, but it'll never be a quality bike.

Not trying to argue, just showing the other side of the coin

Quality no, but as bad as people make them out to be, also no.

[Kaos]

I fix and tune scooters for a living. What I see almost every day is scooters that have been messed with by their wannabe mechanics, who really don't have a clue what they are doing.

Most of the Chinese scooters that people call junk are not Junk, those days (5-10 years ago) are long gone.
The problems I see are things wired up wrong, by the owner not the factory and they burn out the whole wiring loom or never had an oil change, or worse still no engine oil (on 4 strokes) or no 2T oil on 2 strokes, never had a service, botched tuning attempts with the thread on the end of the crankshaft stripped (when changing weights) because it was over torqued or cross threaded. People who change the belt themselves after the original has snapped and don't take the variator off to do it (like putting on a bicycle chain) and then wonder why there's no pick up (because the weights are stuck because of the belt snapping and need to be put back into the ramps properly which you can only do when take the variator off) and lots of other things besides. All of these things are the owner's fault. Invariably the customer slags the scooter off as being Chinese junk, which simply isn't true. It's their own stupidity and lack of mechanical ability that has led to the problem and not mfg defects.
I am so sick of people spouting the Chinese junk crap, it is these days, simply untrue and an excuse for hamfisted wannabe mechanics.
Change the hoses and double check all the electrical connections are tight when you first get a Chinese scooter and it will run every bit as well as a Taiwanese, Korean or European scooter and just a little under that of a Japanese scoot.

While I totally agree that much of the problems most people have are owner stupidity, and that Chinese bikes are slowly improving in quality, I disagree that ALL Chinese bikes are good now... I was just given an '06 Diamo Retro with a motor thats sezed at 500Mi(This was the owner's fault) but the build quality of this bike is horrid. Very thin poorly painted plastic panels, and a frame that flexes due to some bad welds that I had to re-inforce. Its a cheap bike. Its not the end of the world for what it is, and it will run again, but it'll never be a quality bike.

Not trying to argue, just showing the other side of the coin

Quality no, but as bad as people make them out to be, also no.

Ahh, ok I see your point. They can be reliable and fun bikes too. They're just not forgiving of stupid

[Kaos]

Just to add to the fun, this is the piston that I pulled from the Diamo Retro 50cc I was given over the weekend. UUUGGGLLLYYY! The rings have welded to the piston in some places.

<img src="http://www.voodoo-buddy.com/piston.jpg" width=50%>

[illnoise]

P.S. I showed the battery wiring pic to another guy who has a much simpler explanation. He thinks the owner was wiring an accessory and pulled in a fused wire, but then mistakenly connected it to ground rather than the positive terminal of the battery.

Yeah, that has "drunk trip to Pep Boys" written all over it. What you DON'T see is the wiring he pulled out from his botched experiment, and the sloppy hole he melted in the plastic with a power drill somewhere to mount the cigarette lighter.

[ericalm]

P.S. I showed the battery wiring pic to another guy who has a much simpler explanation. He thinks the owner was wiring an accessory and pulled in a fused wire, but then mistakenly connected it to ground rather than the positive terminal of the battery.

Yeah, that has "drunk trip to Pep Boys" written all over it. What you DON'T see is the wiring he pulled out from his botched experiment, and the sloppy hole he melted in the plastic with a power drill somewhere to mount the cigarette lighter.

While I totally rocked my 12V plug installation, I have to say some of my work lately has, um, resembled these comments in some way. "Oh, what I really need is an extractor and a tap set…" Guh. ::headsmack::