Modern Buddy

Hello,

This is my first post here. I own a 2009 Buddy 150 International Pamplona that I purchased used a few months ago.

First off, I love the thing! I've put over 1500 miles on it since I got it sometime in mid October. I cannot imagine life now without it.

Yet, there has been this really annoying issue that has left me stranded on the side of the road - usually when I am pretty far away from home and once at 1am! I have brought it to the local mechanic for the issue but still the problem persists. I hope that posting the symptoms here someone will have an idea as to the issue.

- While driving, throttle starts skipping to the point of full engine kill. This has happened about 5-7 times.

- After the engine kills, I cannot start it up again for some time. Not sure the correct language here, but it tries to start. It turns, yet doesn't fire. I just have to keep trying to start. During this time it'll go from completely not firing, to starting then killing, to starting and able to drive for a moment then kill, to finally starting with no other issues.

- I believe a common link is having less than half a tank, closer to 25% tank, of fuel left. On most of these occasions I have taken it to the nearest gas station and filled up. After filling up today, still had a small issue starting, but afterwards drove home with no issue.

- Another common link I believe is that the issue usually happens after a good long drive. Today's episode was about an hour drive, then sitting for 20 in a parking lot, then killed 5 minutes later.

- Also, after today's episode, I found some success starting it up without the gas cap. Seems to like that a bit.

- The gas cap is vented. I have one small hole at the top of the gas cap.

- Also, bought Seafoam last month and have added to about 4 tanks of gas overall.

I have brought the bike to my local mechanic who did a carburetor clean, changed the spark plug, changed the oil, and changed the fuel filter. He cleaned the carburetor (stating some debris was around) and stated some sort of ring was not placed correctly, and so corrected the placement.

With these symptoms listed, anyone have a suggestion of what I should do? Thanks for reading and for any help provided.

Kingcake wrote:I have brought the bike to my local mechanic who did a carburetor clean, changed the spark plug, changed the oil, and changed the fuel filter. He cleaned the carburetor (stating some debris was around) and stated some sort of ring was not placed correctly, and so corrected the placement.

The ring mentioned is probably the vacuum diaphragm sealing ring. Here is a good thread referencing it:

topic27908.html

Since you've vented the gas cap, I would consider checking the fuel tap. Make sure there isn't anything in the tank that could be inhibiting fuel flow at lower fuel levels. Another item to check would be that the fuel tap is getting sufficient vacuum from the engine to keep the valve fully open. Check the smaller line that runs from the intake manifold to the fuel tank for secure connections and make sure there's no fuel in the smaller line.

Kingcake wrote:Hello,

This is my first post here. I own a 2009 Buddy 150 International Pamplona that I purchased used a few months ago.

First off, I love the thing! I've put over 1500 miles on it since I got it sometime in mid October. I cannot imagine life now without it.

Welcome to Modern Buddy. You definitely sound like our kinda people!

Now I'm going to get out of the way so the folks who know what they are talking about can help.

Sounds like you didn't bring it to a real mechanic!

That's the vacuum operated petcock acting up. If you would have brought it to me you would have saved a lot of money!

It sounds like you have a bad stator.

This may not be what is causing your problem but it is easy to rule out. I had similar symptoms on my Buddy. It would intermittently start missing and sometimes stop. Check your spark plug wire. It just pushes on to the spark plug and over time it can stop fitting as tightly. Then when it is loose you can get the throttle skipping. It's worth checking out. Replacing my spark plug wire fixed it for me.

Thanks for all the suggestions. I am going to look into troubleshooting and whether I can manage these tips myself or bring back to the mechanic with these suggestions.

avescoots1134 - It seems that part is fairly inexpensive and that you seem pretty confident in it being the cause. What is the difficultly of changing the part? I don't mind getting my hands dirty and learning, but don't want to get over my head.

So did the problem go away after your mechanic worked on it? If not, then it definitely sounds like a fuel starvation problem to me. I agree with avescoots, check the fuel petcock and it's related hoses including the vacuum line that opens the petcock and allows it to supply fuel to the carb.