Oldfeller,

Looks like i got some petcock learnin to do.

awfully small piece of equipment to be causin such major issues, and the learnin has now begun.

well boys and girls, as they say, "it takes a village".  i am riding again.

thanks to all that offered advice.

Boule'tard, i thought surely to the good lord it couldn't be rings this early, but i am so new to this scooter i am listening to anything.

I partook of the buffet of advice I was offered, so it may not be simple to know what exactly the problem was. here is what i did.

first.....drained the bowl...what i collected had some very miniscule "trash" in it, but it was definitely not super clean.  after replacing the clean out screw, i swithched it to prime, filled the bowl, and drained it again.  this time not nearly what i got the first time.

moved then to the vacuum hose. on the end coming into the carb, was a very tiny place at the bend, i don't think it was all  the way thru, but i trimmed it off and replaced it.

then to the petcock, drained the tank, removed the petcock, shot it full of carb cleaner on all three settings.  when i took the petcock off at first, if i turned the valve to all the settings i couldn't hear anything, after shooting it with the cleaner, i could hear the diaphram moving when switching from "run" to "prime".

put it all back on, opened it to prime to fill the bowl, then switched it to "run".  

pulled the choke to the first notch, fired the bike, took it just a second to catch, but then fired right up. idled about 2 minutes and i took it thru the neighborhood, 20 minutes of riding and the last ten pushing it pretty hard she sounds like her old self.

thanks again to this group of geniuses for helping out a complete stranger and newb to this bike and motor.  i know much more about this animal than i did a week ago due to your advice and the pics and instructions on some of your posts on the tech page.

if you guys are ever in NC riding the parkway and get in a bind, let me know, i will be on the way with tools to watch someone that knows what their doing work.  

safe ridin.

scott

Bess227,
Does your bike have a fuel filter tween tank and carb ?
If not I suggest you install one. You already know there is more than good clean gas in your tank. Any inline filter is better than the petcock screen.
W/o an inline fuel filter you are asking for carb problems.

And secondly, don't let the famous " Vacuum Petcock Paranoia" get to you ! Just make sure the vacuum line is in good shape. Mine is 7 yrs old, and never a problem.
I removed the bowl from my carb, for no reason other than to see the horrible junk that E10 leaves in carbs, and (after 7 yrs) found no sign of such a thing,....it was spotless except for some fine grit on the bottom, which prompted me to install a fuel filter.

to all you folks that helped me get going again.

the cleanouts and other stuff really worked. this thing is running better than it has since i bought it.

rode it in to work this morning, i know the windshield changes the feel of the wind, but i was running almost 70 and didn't realize it. motor sounded smooth, not out of breath at all.

anyway.....thanks a lot.  

Noop... Prime does pull from the bottom... so's you can use it to drain the tank if you need to...
So, if you run on prime... you got no reserve... ...

Prime & reserve pull from the same tube in the tank, prime bypasses the diaphragm, when you are outta gas on reserve, youre outta gas on prime, too,, so, get to walkin,,

360k+ wrote on 05/18/12 at 09:06:56:


And if you upgrade to the Raptor 660 petcock, that's what you will have again, plus easier to remove the tank.  

OK, I get it now.   Actually, the shop manual kinda sorta describes it, but the owners manual provides a good explanation.