My Baron Scooter

Reset forum

2011-08-07T11:32:00.000-07:00

The forum got so bogged with spam, I unfortunately had to reset it. The software that I used to run the forum, the bbpost, simply did not allow me to perform any "bulk" actions to remove the spam. So now the forum is still there, but completely clean like brand new. Give it a try if you want, I will for one make sure to try and answer your question. Then again, you can simply leave your comments here.

CAPTCHAS

2009-11-06T03:30:00.000-08:00

I am committed to keeping the comments on this blog open without any special registration with Blogger etc. Yet this is getting difficult as I am getting large amounts of spam comments. For this reason I'm adding captchas, the little distorted word images that one needs to recognize before being able to post comments. I am sure you've seen a ton of those. This way comments may still be anonymous, without any ID/password or registration.

New hosting for the manual

2009-02-17T13:40:00.000-08:00

I am putting the manual in a new place, on the same site that hosts the forum. This should be faster and without any advertising interruptions. Here's the link: BaronScooterManual.pdf

Where's my rear brakes tank cover?

2009-01-17T09:10:00.000-08:00

150cc Barons have both front and rear disk brakes. This is great and gives for a safe and fun riding, but you may have been wondering where the hell is the tank for the brake fluid for that rear. Well it used to be the rear brakes were drums, and Baron haven't yet put an access port for the rear brakes fluid tank. The tank (aka tiny aluminum box) is exactly the same as for the front brakes, and is located symmetrically on the left side of the handlebar. You have to take off the entire front cover to get to it, however.

Check out the forum!

2009-01-17T08:35:00.000-08:00

I've put together the forum where it will be easier to exchange information and to preserve it over time - way better than comments. The forum is located here:

http://www.scooterblog.yarkolts.com/forum/

Please visit if you'd like to leave some comments or ask for help for your scoot. I will be checking the forum regularly, too. The place is empty but hey somebody's got to be the first one to post! At this time, you can post or create new topics without any registration mess, if you'd like to do so.

Moving and selling

2008-12-16T09:27:00.000-08:00

I moved out of the Twin Cities in the middle of last month and had to sell my scooter. I was in fact still with the broken cable, so I gave it away to a friend for rather cheap. I hope he will fix and make some good use of it - and perhaps even contribute to these pages one day!

In the mean time, I will finish some small posts that I always wanted to do but never really had time for. Perhaps I'll get to it later this winter. I will also be opening a web board. I would like to create a permanent place online where this sort of scooter experience can be shared and stored.

I am now in Barcelona, a city ranked number two in the number of scooters (per head?). The things are literary everywhere, quite a teaser. I will however be a while before I can get one of my own.

Check out Justin's blog

2008-10-20T19:15:00.001-07:00

(nevermind he seems to be down)

He writes about all sorts of things but also about scooting.

Throttle

2008-09-12T19:38:00.000-07:00

So my throttle cable had in fact broken inside the housing. It is in quite rusty and dead-looking in many places. What this means is there probably never was any oil put on it, even though it should have been lubricated at the factory. Any king of initial lubrication should have lasted to this point. Because the throttle never felt too stiff, I never got to lubricating the cable myself, though probably should have. The lesson here is obviously to lubricate your cable before it's too late.

Thottle cable snap-off

2008-09-09T19:56:00.000-07:00

Apparently my throttle cable snapped off this evening. The throttle handle turns and moves the cable, but there's no effect on the engine which stays at idle speeds. This was probably in the making for quite a while as I felt slight but really weird slipping in the throttle handle from some time ago. The funny part is, it snapped right on the highway.

I figured leaving it right there will probably mean towing, and towing means money and inevitable damage as there's no easy way to transport a scooter with a standard tower especially without a centerstand, and that means even more money. And in any case I wouldn't want to leave my fave toy to some weird police people. So I pushed it towards exit which happened to be quite close. Good thing this was in the city. Anyways after I pushed it out it only made sense to keep going. Just checked - I went about 1.5 miles. Mostly on the curb but sometimes on the side of the road. The scary part was getting it out of the highway - it was quite dark and there was plenty of traffic.

Anyways, remember I hoped I wouldn't get all the possible breakdowns on my Baron? Just forget about it.

The learning is of course not to push the throttle to hard when twisting it all the way. I.e. twist it all the way but don't cram it in there. No surprise it snapped on the hightway.

Inspection check list

2008-09-07T15:31:00.001-07:00

I will be accumulating notes here that I think should be checked on the scoot once in a while. Most of these are nuts that need to be tightened - and that is really a weak spot for Chinese scooters. If you want to save yourself some repairs, check these things once you buy your scoot and than say at the beginning and the end of the riding season.

Nuts and bolts to tighten:

Nuts holding the exhaust pipe brackets. These fall off, but not in my case.
M6 studs holding your exhaust pipe pressed against the engine. These also fall off.
The rear wheal axle nut. Yes, this one can be loose as well.
The front fork bolt. I'll post some pictures.
Bolts holding the centerstand.
Bold holding the switch on the kickstant. You'd have to take the switch off to get to the main nut.
Bolts holding the mirrors.

Kick stand

2008-09-07T14:46:00.000-07:00

I was replacing my broken kickstand today. Because my centerstand has broken as well, this was quite an emergency :) I got a used replacement from my dealer.

To get to that area, I had to remove lower left side panel first. This is one of the grey panels that sort of wrap underneath the scoot. It is fixed by a bolt and a bunch of screws, some under the "carpet".

The leg itself is fixed by a special bolt in its bracket. The bolt has a thread in it for the detector which shuts down ignition once you kick it open. The further side of the bracket has a thread in it, so there isn't a nut for this bolt.

The hardest part is the spring. It is tight enough to make it impossible to just stretch it with hands. The trick is to hook both ends of the spring and then work the leg into the bracket sort of pushing it against notches on the frame so that the holes align.

This is what it looks like:

The part hanging is the shutoff switch. It goes over the bolt, and has a groove to hang to the little post above the bolt. Notice there's a little hole under the bolt on the kickstand leg. There's a small pin on the switch that goes in there.

Here's the whole thing mounted. I had to replace the smaller bolt with my own. This is a regular 25mm-long 6M stainless steel bolt with a couple washers. You have to jam it into the thread rather hard. It is not meant to push against the switch as these move separately.

Tools: The large bolt takes a 14mm socket, and the smaller one a 10mm one. You'll also need 10mm socket and a regular Phillips screwdriver to remove the panel.

Related posts:
So my small kickstand just fell off
Broken centerstand

Xenon lights

2008-09-06T23:43:00.000-07:00

I am having constant problems with my lights, by here's a guy who seems to have his problems figured out with HID (high-intensity discharge headlights a.k.a. Xenon bulbs):

http://www.scootercommunity.com.au/forums/t/2943.aspx

Compatibility: Avispa Verucci

2008-09-06T20:45:00.000-07:00

Here's one more of the same: Avispa Verucci scooter. I think Verucci is the brand and Avispa is the name for the 150cc model.

Planned repairs

2008-09-05T09:36:00.000-07:00

I went to my dealership this Thursday and picked a whole bunch of stuff that I needed to replace. This included both stands, lenses for the rear light and an 18 Watt front headlight. Can't wait to finally fix all these things.

How you can support this site

2008-09-04T19:55:00.000-07:00

When searching the web for information, I usually feel quite grateful finding little bits and pieces that were put there by all sorts of hobbyists or enthusiasts. It used to be, the better the page, the faster I was able to get the info and get out of there to work on my own stuff. This has changed quite a bit since I started this site last year.

This site has in fact began to draw some people this past summer. Enough to make it meaningful to keep putting my time into it, but insufficient to make it sustainable. Given large enough number of users, we could have a forum to share experience. I could also post content from other people. I'd hope I won't eventually get every possible breakdown!

Large number of visitors would warrant purchasing a spot to at least host download files such as the manual or even the entire site. The adds have not yet translated into any actual cash in my pocket. I am mostly doing them to figure out how this stuff works. All expenses have to my own and this only makes sense if there is sufficient number of people benefiting from it.

These days, when I come across a site that I find genuinely helpful, I don't just grab-and-run. Instead, I try to give something back. Usually it is not the money, but some other internet-valuables. Mostly, I try to leave links to such sites either on my own pages or forums or any other place online. This draws in more visitors - and the hosts can decide themselves what they want to do with it. If you want to help this site, think for a second if there's any way you could mention it or just leave a link somewhere. At this point, there is exactly zero links to this place in the whole world wide web (or so Google tells me). Yours could be a 100% change! This being said, of course please don't go around spamming.

Another and much more involved way to contribute is to write about you own experience. This could be riding experience, advice for beginners, or a description of some repair or modification. Reviews of dealers or store experience would be great as well! If you feel like contributing in this way, let me know! Just leave a comment here and I'll send you an email.

How to convert your scooter's odometer to miles

2008-08-30T20:55:00.000-07:00

The odometer on your Chinese scooter most likely shows the distance traveled in kilometers. This is often the case even if the manual or your dealer says it will actually be in miles. You can check this of course by traveling a short distance, writing down the readings and then checking the distance against your favorite maps website, i.e. Google Maps.

To convert kilometers to miles, simply divide by 1.602 . That is , 1km = 1/1.602 mi = 0.624 mi.

Broken centerstand

2008-08-30T20:45:00.000-07:00

My center stand broke today as I tried to park at a store. Because the kickstand has broken some time ago and wasn't replaced, I have no normal way to leave my scooter anymore. So I have to sit on the whole day. Kidding. I ended up riding back home and jamming the scoot between my house and fire staircase. Fortunately enough the spot is just wide enough to hold the scoot. The odometer is now at 7028 km - that's about 4400 miles.

Gravel

2008-08-17T14:49:00.000-07:00

It's that time of the year again - the city of Minneapolis fills its emergency rooms by covering road with loose gravel. This is supposed to heal the roads a little, but it also means scores of people who loose control of their vehicles and skid on this stuff. You probably know this already from driving your car, but things are way worse for the scooters. Scooter on gravel road is sort of like a cow on ice (or at least that's how I imagine cows on ice). The hardest part comes when you slow down or take a turn (think of turning from a normal road to one with gravel). The wheels tend to lock and the scoot starts skidding. Scoot carefully!

Changing transmission oil on my scooter

2008-07-24T23:16:00.000-07:00

It is normally recommended that scooter transmission oil be changed at least once a year. Once I hit 6000km - probably more then a typical year's worth of riding - and especially after that long ride to Duluth, it seemed like transmission oil change for my Baron was due.

There are three types of oil you can find in motorcycle and auto stores, besides the cleaning/penetrating types. These are various types of engine, automatic transmission fluid (ATF) and gear oil. While our scoots have "automatic" transmission, the V-belt transmission works quite different from car's AT and what I believe should be used for scooters is the gear oil. This is the stuff that goes into manual transmission boxes and perhaps other machinery. Gear oil is standardized similarly to engine oil, by a range of viscosity. I dug online a little and found suggestions to use 75 to 90 W oils for scooter transmission. This is exactly what I'll be going for.

It is a good time to remind you that I am not in any way offering a professional advice on these pages.

What I found in AutoZone was a cheep and very convenient bottle of 75-90W, exactly what I needed. It cost about $6. The most expensive one from Mobile-1 (with a larger range, up to something like 140W), was about 15$. The bottle is so big it will last a lifetime, I just wanted to use mineral oil. All of these bottles had convenient funnel tip which helps to squirt the oil into the transmission box and set the level correctly.

So there you go - it's meet-the-bottle moment (these are full-resolution images):

Main points about it are
-It is gear oil
-It is rated 75W-90 (wider range is OK)
-It has a funnel tip

The oil is drained from a drain plug on the bottom of the V-belt box. There's really a small amout of it. I drained mine into a glass jar. This fill screw is on the side of the transmission box. Here's a pic:

The screws are M6 and so they take a 10mm wrench or hex sockets.

Notice aluminum gaskets on each of these screws. They get smashed a little by the screws and hold the seal to keep the oil in. It is a good practice to replace these sorts of things, but I just put mine back in.

Draining was easy. I drove it around to warm up the oil a little. Then I stalled the scoot (which means turn off the ignition), put it on a center stand and undone the drain screw. Some dark and really thick oil come out. It really looked like it was long due! (Undo the level screw to let the oil flow out easier.) Since it was so viscous, I had to wait upward of 10 minutes as it just kept oozing out. Then I cleaned the drain screw and its gasket in this very stuff (which in fact becomes a great penetrating oil) and put them back in.

Filling is easy with the funnel-tip bottle. The bottle is flexible, and you just squeeze the bottle to force the stuff in and then let whatever is in excess to flow out. I repeated this to make sure the oil filled all the cavities. Once again, it takes a rather long time for it to drip out. The scoot is supposed to be horizontal for this procedure, so I just did my best to kinda lift the front wheel up a little. I am not sure if this was at all necessary. Then I put the level screw with its gasket back in.

The seals. Since there's no level meter (the level is simply at the position of the fill screw), my biggest worry was that it will leak some oil without me noticing. It got the screws tight with a ratchet, but not crazy-tight as to not to crash the gaskets or break the threads. Then I rode a little and parked the scooter overnight with a piece of paper under this area. Nothing came out so I assume I did this correctly. Still, there was a little grime on the level screw later on when I did this picture.

The ride. The scooter did seam a little quieter and smoother, but hey maybe it's just in my head. I have my idle set too low so the scoot sometimes stalls at intersections. It does seem to happen less often now after the change.

So my small kickstand just fell off

2008-07-18T20:46:00.000-07:00

As I parked at a store today, my small kickstand simply fell off. Good thing I kept the scoot from tipping. What fell off was a fact a piece of it -- the metal simply broke! This is a little scary if only because the frame may be of the same quality and fixing that would be a pain. It also looks like it make have broken along a welded edge because the metal is spongy and has bubbles in it. Or perhaps its just Chinese take on Swiss quality, and the metal is shit.

Anyways, a piece of it is still hanging. I flipped it to the "up" position and rode like that. I am now at 6328km, and that's 3900 miles.

It's Ride to work day this Wednesday!

2008-07-14T17:08:00.001-07:00

It's the ride to work day tomorrow! Not like it's different from any other day's riding to work for a real fan ;) but just in case you had some excuse from riding tomorrow - see if you can drop it!

http://www.ridetowork.org/

I'll keep my eyes open to see if there will be any visibly changed presence of scooters on the roads in Twin Cities.

Trip to Duluth from Minneapolis

2008-07-12T22:18:00.001-07:00

I went to Duluth this past 4th of July. This was a 300 miles trip and a major undertaking for me. In fact I never took my scoot anywhere that far. Duluth is a small port city on Lake Superior but in fact a largest fresh water port in the world or something like that. It is a common weekend destination for folks in Twin Cities. After all, this is about the only place you can get to in a day's worth of riding from here :) That is, of car riding. I learned one of friends attempted this on a scooter but wasn't able to get there. His story was he just had to refuel too often and so he turned back. I think he used one of juiced Genuine 50cc scooters for that trip. Well, mine is a 150cc so I had a better chance - but only one short evening to prepare!

View Larger Map

(Normal route would be of course 35W going straight all the way to Duluth harbor area.)

Here's what I did to get ready for the ride:

Changed the oil -- it was long due. Good thing I got some earlier that day. So the whole ride went on fresh oil.

Tightened as many nuts as I found. The wheels seemed tight on :) Checked nuts and bolts on muffler clamps and engine-muffler joint, the kickstands and brake calipers.

Checked the tire pressure. My back tire tends to leak a little. Got it back up to 33psi.

Found out one of my rear shocks is full of dirt and oil. Wiped it all out to see if it's leaking (looks like it does).

Packed some tools. Because I just did an oil change, I tool a 17mm socket and a ratchet in case I have to tighten it a little. Phillips screwdriver for panels battery etc. and a 6mm Allen key in case the mirrors get loose (which happens regularly with mine). Then I came across mount straps that I won at the Rattle My Bones last year. This is the stuff you'd use to mount a scoot on a truck. Since I quite seriously anticipated never making it, I took those as well. None of this stuff became of any use.

Packed some spare things in case of rain. Jacked and a pullover. Long sleeve shirt not to get fried up. Usual gloves and unusual helmet with dark shield. Spare goggles. Water bottles, backpack and a lot of bungee cords to tie it all down once I get tired. A camera and yeah, my tripod. Got some snacks before leaving.

Already on my way, got sunscreen and some maps at a gas station early next day. I have experience burning myself on scoot rides. The wind cools you down and before you know it, it's all done. Given it was going to be at least eight hours of riding under bright sun, I made sure to cover myself as much as possible. Surprisingly, the only "cars" at that station were trucks, SUVs and perhaps some minivans but not a single happy face.

The ride

I got out at about 10:30am. The Cenral quickly became 65th highway - with 65mph speed limit. This was a little stressful but hey at least it has plenty lanes to take over. Whenever the traffic would get heavy, I went at 60mph. However I'd often try to go down to 50mph. The day was hot and I was quite worried not to overheat the engine. 60mph for me is far in the red zone and as fast as I can make it go.

The things soon started to look quite rural. The cars disappeared, and so did any signs of big cities. Forests and farmland - it is really easy to loose track of signs and just keep riding straight ahead. Having to jump highways kept me awake - and hell was it easy to miss some. At some point I took a wrong turn and got onto that very 35W - going back to Minneapolis. I was a long while before the next exit - and I had to take a large piece of the road over again. Then later on Google maps seemed to send me over towards a federal prison, or so the road signs said!

At that point I was on Hwy 123/23 - a great road with beautiful sights. The only problem was it didn't have any gas stations. By the time I got close to Duluth, I was almost empty with the arrow just about to lay flat. But hey I made it! On my way back I tried a side road and found a gas station there. However, some of it was actually closed down by the department of commerce - not an encouraging sign indeed! Here are a few pictures from the trip (all are clickable for a larger image):

The damage

There was of course a good chance that my scoot will simply stop in the middle of nowhere. My biggest worry was the heat and the stress of driving at large speed for so long. The engine could have easily overheated in that day's heat and many-hour riding its max. Or it could be something benign like a molten plastic piece somewhere. Well, I was lucky not to get down with anything like that.

As I was going back, some screws must have finally fell off from the plastic panels on the front fork (the one with the headlights). Some of the joints there must have been broken from flipping the scoot long time ago; once it all got loose, the remaining mounting brackets got more than their share of stress and some must have broken from that. So I took out a little side panel just not to loose it and kept going. The large front panel would make quite some rattle but it stayed put and I was able to finish ok. Surprisingly, the tool that I actually needed --- and of course did not have --- was a roll of duct tape!

Other than this, there was no apparent damage whatsoever. The scoot seems to be doing just fine, it is now at over 6000km.

A little statistics

It took me just over four hours to get back. The weather got colder (I arrived just after midnight), and since the task was complete anyways I was driving at 60mph most of the way. With getting lost and lower speeds, it took me about 6hrs to get to Duluth. So with experience, it is quite possible to have a normal day's trip there on a scooter!

I put on a total of 549km, or about 340mi. I've used just over 5 gallons of gas, and the mileage turned out to be 66 miles per gallon. This is a little surprising given that I'd expect lower mileage driving at my scooter's top speed. On the other hand, there was no stop-and-go thing.

I've spend an exact total of $20.47 for gas on the whole round trip. That is, if you don't count some assholes that turned out to charge my card $5 for some mystical carwash, but that's a whole different story.

Well, as this is getting really long, I'll just stop here. It was hell of a day!

Search baronscooter.blogspot.com

2008-07-08T13:02:00.000-07:00

Results will open in same window. You can also search this site directly from Google (new window).

Parking update

2008-07-08T09:37:00.001-07:00

Apparently times are changing for large scooter owners, as the cops become more vary of the distinction between scooter-mopeds and scooters-in-fact-legally-motorcycles. I have been warned a couple times already in various locations to not to park on the bicycle racks or bycicle space, once in fact by a cop. Friends say they've noticed lots of scooters getting tickets even at the U. Since this is summer and not too busy, I am still parking at a huge bike rack right in front of my building. I park in the far end giving me some shade and perhaps keeping it a little further from the cops' eyes. So far I wasn't fined for this, but it looks as if I should be saving the money already ;) Other than this location, I mostly park as a motorcycle should, and almost never on a curb. Wouldn't it be great if the rules weren't based on the power but the space! If it can fit in, it should be let in!

Oil change and the trip

2008-07-03T19:05:00.000-07:00

Just changed my oil, first time since the start of the season (I put in fresh oil after "de-winterizing" of course). I am now at 5445, so that's about 1000km since the last change.

My local bike shop does not have the same old Castrol oil anymore. So I took a similar 10W-40, still for $5:

I decided to take a trip to Duluth tomorrow or on the weekend. Duluth is a port on Lake Superior way up north Minnesota, some 150mi from Minneapolis. I detailed the scoot (maybe should be another post) and checked as many nuts as I could --- everything looked O.k. So hopefully I'll be able to make it! Will make a separate post about this once I get to it. Well now it's beer time!

Test video

2008-06-26T20:05:00.000-07:00

I'm trying to learn how capture a ride on my cam; so here's a test vid.

Compatibility update: Velocity, Tank and NST are all the same thing

2008-06-24T08:39:00.000-07:00

Here are a few more rebrands: Velocity and of course the Tank. I am not sure if Velocity is a separate brand or just a model of Tanks. The large scoot below must be 250cc and seems in every way simialar to other Chinese 250cc scoots including Barons.

Finally, here's NST. This one is smaller 50cc model.

Group ride

2008-06-23T21:03:00.000-07:00

I went on my first group ride this Saturday. It was a small part Heck's Angels gathering at the southern suburbs. There were seven of us in all led by Paul, a tall slim guy with a kind of geeky looks, and he took us on a rather industrial route. We first went through the airport "parking" and cargo areas, with plenty of planes to stare at and for some reason also FedEx trucks. We stopped for a group picture but all the cameras just failed and so I have no picture to share (my own camera is locked in my car's glove compartment which got stuck and just couldn't be opened). It was a great occasion to refresh my group riding skills.

Got under a rather heavy rain when heading back home. The learning was obviously to always have a jacked under the seat (check) and maybe a warm sweater as well (miss).

5000

2008-06-21T14:20:00.000-07:00

I have recently crossed 5000km mark, and now I am at about 5070. The scoot is doing well, or at least it isn't falling apart. I am taking it on highways a whole lot, especially when I have to just jump to the next exit. Fuel gauge started to waggle, or perhaps I am just looking at it too much.

Baron scooter manual

2008-06-19T20:38:00.000-07:00

Here's a scan of the original Baron manual that I got with my scooter, a.k.a. "Description Book". I don't think there's a single grammatically and stylistically correct sentence in this thing, providing for some fun reading. Some stuff is also obviously outdated. Enjoy!

Download Baron Scooter Manual
(Have to click on "Click Here To Download" at the bottom of the page that opens.)

I will try to keep this file hosted permanently, but if you find the link broken, please leave a comment.

Assembling your own scooter

2008-06-18T09:56:00.000-07:00

Many scooters these days are sold in-the-crate, and assembly is required once you get the crate delivered. I got my scoot already assembled from the dealership, however I am aware there must be a large number of people out there figuring out how to put it all together. So I ran a little poll, and got quite a few responses, at least compared to the number of people stopping by! The majority seems to have had their scoot already prepared.

Did you have to assemble your scoot?

However, somebody out there still had to do it on their own. If you have any experience assembling the Baron/Roketa/Yamati scooters and would like to share, please let me know! I will be glad to post it on this site.

StarTrib article

2008-06-17T19:20:00.001-07:00

I figured I'll post links to whatever relevant media coverage I run into. Here's a recent post in our local Star Tribune paper. Their main point seems to be that scooters are inexpensive.

http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/yourmoney/19985434.html

Scooter cover

2008-06-08T18:08:00.000-07:00

My entire first summer I covered my scooter with a scooter cover for the night. This keeps out some rain, some squirrels and probably some assholes. Out of sight -- out of mind, and supposedly using a cover is one of the best things one can do prevent scooter theft and vandalism. I got my cover in a local motorcycle store. It was labeled for smaller motorcycles or scooters and sold for about $35. The only special thing in these covers is special heat resistant layer in the area where the cover touches the exhaust pipe.

Changing the cylinder for the front brakes

2008-06-08T17:38:00.000-07:00

My front brakes kept leaking. The leak was somewhere from where the piston enters the cylinder (point where the brake handlebar pushes it in), and there was nothing obviously subject to fixing when I took it apart once again recently. I decided to change the whole thing (that is the brake fluid can with the piston/brake cylinder in it), and was able to get the replacement from my dealer.

The job was quite easy, except that both the front and the back panels from the handlebar had to be undone to get to the brake mount on the handlebar (offset screwdriver could probably do the job as well). The "back" panel is the one with dashboard. So not much to show here, there is a bracket with two screws that mounts the can to the handlebar, the electric button that signals the brakes and the handle comes off like I posted before. The brake line is affixed by a single "screw" (which has corresponding holes to mate the can to the line) with a couple rubber gasket washers to keep the seal. It is a 12mm hex nut. My dealer says this nut is the most common source of leak. He says it is normally just enough to tighten it a little. However in my case the leak was obviously in a different location.

I didn't bleed it, just bubbled it up by working the brakes slowly. Slowly so as not to squirt a little fountain out. Changing the tilt helped to bubble it faster. Eventually the bubbles stop coming. So now my front brakes are as firm as new. Wait it did get a little softer over a few days, or maybe I just got used to it.

How to change oil on a Baron scooter

2008-05-30T19:03:00.000-07:00

When it comes to oil, scooters are indeed special. The good news are, there's no oil filter. That's right, zilch oil filters on your scoot. The only exception to this are some really old Vespas. This means no searching for replacement or opening the engine plates like on motorcycles. This also means real fast oil change. The bad news are, there's no oil filter. That means very frequent oil changes. We clean it by throwing it away :)

The "manual" suggests changing oil on my Baron every 500km. The usual suggestion (but not in the manual) is also that one changes the oil more often while the engine is "breaking in", that is first couple thousand kilometer after buying a new scoot. It is in this time that the engine can shed some aluminum chips while "polishing" itself, and you really want them out fast. I've heard of suggestions to change oil every 100-200km for the first 500 or 1000 km. However I didn't do it as often myself as I was trying to find the oil filter replacements in that time :) I normally change my oil between 500 and 1000km.

What you'll need

The brand of oil suggested in the manual is not being produced since 80's or something like that. I use a standard 10W-40 SAE oil for 4-stroke motorcycle engines, made by Castrol.

The important things about this are:
1. It is for four-stroke engines. This is signified by "4T" on the label. Do not use oil for 2-stroke engines on 4-stroke scooters.
2. It is 10W-40 giving enough temperature range. Scooter engines have poor cooling and are prone to overheating.
3. It is a quart bottle, more than you will need for one oil change.
4. It is $4.5o from my local motorcycle store, but can probably get this for cheaper.

Other than a quart of oil, you'll need a narrow-end funnel, a 17mm wrench or hex socket, and some sort of a bucket to drain oil, and perhaps some paper towel ;)

Draining

Oil is drained from a port on the bottom of the engine:

That's right next to the back wheel. The hex head on the drain cap is 17mm. You can undo it with a wrench, but the danger lies in threading the engine when putting it back. A 17mm hex socket and a socket wrench will do you a good service here.

To drain the oil, you'll want your scoot on a center stand. Run it idle for at least two minutes. This thins the oil and helps to get it out. This also makes it hot, so watch out not to burn yourself on engine or the oil. Exhaust will be hot as well. Once I got more skilled at the whole procedure, I would drive it for 5mins or so before starting the oil change.

Once it is warm and firmly on a center stand, put a bucket under the engine. I use a sort of sturdy flat food container with a firm rubber lid. No, I don't put food in it anymore. Less that a quart of oil will come out, so it is easy to pick a suitable container. You may want to cover the area under the engine in case you'll spill some oil.

Unscrew and take out the dipstick.

It is the black screw-like plastic handle between the engine and exhaust on the pic above. You should have been using it all along to check the oil level. No tools needed, it unscrews by hand.

Undo the oil drain cap. It should come off really easy. Engine is made of aluminum, and it is really easy to blow the thread. Usually as I undo this screw, the oil starts pouring slowly. I then just let the bolt and a few more pieces fall into the oil. I can also use this used oil to wash the pieces from any oil curd that they accumulated.

There are three pieces that come out: the cap (with the hex head) itself, a spring and a mesh bucket. This mesh bucket works as a crude filter. This is what it looks like

Make sure there's nothing stuck on the mesh, around the thread etc. My mesh has a few dents. This happened sometime after the second oil change - must have been something flying around the engine. It never got worse, so I kept the old mesh.

Once the oil stopped dripping (cat take a while), you are ready to put in the fresh stuff.

Here's a view down the drain. Note a hole on the side.

Filling fresh oil

Assemble the cap, the mesh and the spring. They go in like like this:

Once I have this little assembly, I put it back in by hand, and screw the bolt fingertight first. Everything goes in easily. Remember this thing lives in oil :) Once fingertight, tighten it a tad more with a tool. The worst that will happen if it isn't quite tight enough is a slow and fixable oil leak. The drain plug seals with a rubber gasket against the engine. That is, it cannot and should not go in as tight as a normal metal screw.

Fresh oil is added trough the dipstick hole. A narrow funnel is really useful here. It can be hard to tell how much oil to put in. The correct level is set by the lower part of the stick - that is when it is screwed all the way in.

You don't want to overfill it as undoing the drain bolt should be done completely, which means you will loose all your oil if you have to drain it again. I took a piece of wire and bent it to make a little gauge out of it, comparing it with the dipstick. This can go in and out really quickly to check if I got enough oil already.

Some time after the oil change, you should check the level just in case you may be leaking the oil from the drain plug.

Used oil

Used oil should be recycled - there's all sorts of nasty stuff in it. Any auto store will take oil for recycling in Minnesota. I take mine to Autozone, they point me to a huge drum and I just poor it down. No questions asked.

See also: new oil.

How to correctly inflate tires on Baron scooter

2008-05-19T19:12:00.000-07:00

The correct tire pressure for my 150cc scooter is 33psi for both front and back wheels. You can read correct setting on the metal plate on the inside of the under-the-seat storage bucket. This is fact quite fortunate, because bikes of all sorts tent to use much higher tire pressure because of the smaller contact spot between the wheel and the ground. Good enough, this means you can use your normal car tire gauge to check the pressure.

I found that my wheels were almost completely deflated this week. This could in fact have happened slowly during the winter. Even deflated, the tires keep their shape and the rim does not press against the rubber. You could tell the pressure was low by pressing the center of the rubber with a thumb, as it yields a little. This could take some strength however :)

After pumping up the tires, I took the scoot for a ride. It did in fact handle different - it is much easier to break the corners as it almost yearns for a tilt.

Getting on track

2008-05-10T20:40:00.000-07:00

Since the main purpose of this site was to fill the basic maintenance info for Baron scooters which I just couldn't find anywhere, I feel a little behind writing about all the weird repairs that I had to do. So I'll see if I can fill that gap after all. You know, oil changes and such.

Compatibility

2008-04-20T17:18:00.000-07:00

I knew for a while that Baron is one of many brands for basically (if not exactly) the same assembly of Chinese scooters. Roketa scoots were an early observation. Yamati joins the list too, here's what these look like:

Looks familiar, eh? It is easy to spot the "compatible" models by the headlights and also by looking at the muffler/oil level stick area.

Tabs

2008-04-20T17:00:00.000-07:00

Good thing I remembered to put the registration sticker on before riding out today. The bill came in the winter, which is really dumb as motorcycles and winters don't go together in Minnesota. Anyways, my motorcycle registration was $14.50, which is totally sweet.

Taking it out of storage

2008-04-09T20:39:00.000-07:00

So I went ahead and unwrapped the scoot two weeks ago. Surprisingly, it didn't have that much rust - except for some quite visible on the back shock absorbers. Still, it doesn't look that scary. No living things took shelter under the cover, which is a huge success. Even more surprisingly, most gas is still in there, the level barely went down. There are also signs of gas vapor spots all around the filling port. As I tried to decide whether I actually want to try starting it on old gas, it started snowing and we got a full six inches or so, pun intended. Now that I have some time again, we got another snow warning. Oh well. Yeah, the brake fluid from front brake seems to be gone completely - looks like my brake exercise are far from over.

Winter storage

2008-03-30T07:37:00.000-07:00

This is already spring, and I want to recap winterizing the scoot, if only for the next year. I started by searching the net, and came across a few good pages, mostly from motorcycle people. The advice ranges from simple the washing the bike to esoteric spooning of oil into the cylinders through spark plug ports. Here is a couple of these:

www.clarity.net/~adam/winter-storage-content.html
www.calsci.com/motorcycleinfo/StorageList.html

The problem for me was that I could not store the bike indoors without draining the fuel tank. This would sure mean that the tank will rust, and I would spend my summer learning how to clean my carbs. So I took my chances and decided to store it outside. Well, with my luck, this turned out one of harshest winters in years. It wasn't coldest one, but it did get quite cold and cycling, and it snowed, and it was humid. Pretty much the worst you could do to a piece of metal sitting outside. So we'll see how it faired.

Below are my preparations, mostly done in a hurry as the cold hit suddenly last year and I actually had to wait a little for it to get warmer:

Add the fuel stabilizer. Fuel stabilizer is a sort of a "thinner" for your gas. It protects your engine and mostly carburetors from the goo that will form as the gas dries. Stabilizers come in tiny bottles worth around $5, with enough potion to serve you a lifetime (see it's a stabilizer, it can be stored for a long time :). There are dosages for storage and (smaller) for running. So some time before the storage, I went to the gas station and fist added the "operational" dose, then filled the tank. This way the stuff can mix and have enough time to get down the injection system. Well, right as I was ready to finally store the scoot, I went for another top-up and discovered that my station stopped serving alcohol-free gas. So the final arrangement was usual gas with ethanol filled to the rim plus fuel stabilizer.

Wash and wax the scoot. This was the second time I took the scoot to the car wash. Surprisingly, it could handle all the spraying, and started immediately. I waxed the plastic panels with Turtle wax, and the seat with car leather conditioner. One normally does not condition the seat as it gets slippery, but it is certainly worth protecting the seat for the winter time.

Heat it up and change oil. Top the oil. Took it for a good half-an-hour drive on the highways to get rid of any moisture in the exhaust and breakdown stuff from the oil in the engine. Must have been the only scooter on the road. Then I let it to cool down a little, and changed the oil. Instead of the putting the normal amount, I topped the oil level till it almost spilled out. These will be the storage conditions. I didn't drive it from this point, and hoped I will remember this in the spring. It would be a really bad idea to drive it with oil this high as it may not be able to handle the pressure.

Take out the battery. Battery has to stay charged, and it has to stay at reasonable temperatures. So I took it out, hooked it to my Tender Junior charger and once in a while plugged it in for a day or so during the winter. The battery did not seem to discharge much anyways.

Plug the air intake. The air filter is below the seat, under the plastic cover in front of the storage bucket. I lifted the box (Phillips screws), took out the filter and then fitted a sheet of plastic (in fact a torn Ziploc bag) on top of the hole. This seals engine's air intake. Put back the filter to keep the plastic in place, but back the cover.

Wrap the exhaust. In order to prevent moisture from accumulating in the exhaust, I've put another Ziploc over the exhaust endport and tightened it with cable ties.

Grease the shocks. The rubber gaskets in the shock absorbers may dry and become brittle. So I smeared as much engine oil as I could around the area. (Shocks themselves are filled with oil and have appropriate rubber; one should never use oil on regular rubber as it will dry it in no time).

Silicon on small rubber parts. I have plenty of small rubber parts that got the "dry rot", i.e. dried up and cracked a little. This may be due to shitty rubber or long storage for these parts before they were actually put on the scoot. The worst of these are little cracks on my tire valves. So I've put a little silicon spray on these pieces.

Grease on tire axle. A little heavy-duty grease smeared on and around the bolts that keep the tire axles in place. Can't hurt to keep some moisture away.

Wrap it up. I parked it on a tart, then wrapped the tart on the sides with a rope. On top of this comes the normal scooter cover, making a sort of sandwich. Everything tied with ropes to prevent it opening in the wind. Chained to a pole, tarp wrapped around the chain with cable ties.

Well this is all I can remember. I can also remember hoping I will ever be able to drive this babe again. Which I am about find out.

Season starter

2008-03-30T07:33:00.000-07:00

It turns out this page was lately getting a few hits every week. Apparently the spring has already came to the rest of the country, but things are a little different here in Minnesota : ) . Today in fact is the second weekend suitable for biking, and I will go on and start unpacking the baby. But before that, I should make a little post about winter storage.

Trip to dealership

2007-11-18T18:00:00.000-08:00

I went to my dealer this week to get replacement for the threaded brake caliper. In fact, he's not even the guy I bought my scoot from. He used to be a mechanic in that dealership, then bought it over and moved way further into suburbs. Yeah, and they changed the name, too :)

So I was quite anxious about this at first, but he actually honored my warranty when I was replacing my exhaust gasket. Caliper is of course my fault, so I had to buy it. He offered to get me a caliper from a slightly used Baron, supposedly with under 300 miles on it. So I went for it, for just $25. And when I mentioned I needed new reflectors (old broke when I flipped the bike my first time), he just threw them in for free. So this is really cool. It is also great to have a dealer who actually knows stuff about what he sells.

The place is now called GoMoto, with still quite a raw website. They are now in Osseo. Yeah, and the guy's name is Marty.

Front brakes master cylinder leak

2007-11-13T18:19:00.001-08:00

So I had to top my (front) brakes twice so far. If finally appeared to me that there's brake fluid sipping slowly from under the handlebar cover. This was going rather slowly but hey these are the brakes and I wanted to prepare the scoot for the winter. So I just had to dig in there. I am now at 4240 km.

The crack was smashed by some morons when parked at a lake, and the liquid is the brake fluid. No I didn't taste it. But it does have a special feeling to it. Just rub some between fingers, then call 911 in panic.

First I took off front handlebar cover. This is now a separate post since this seems to be quite a repeating procedure :(

It looked as though the fluid is leaking from right under the master cylinder somewhere around the place where brake lever pushes it in. So I took on disassembling the thing.

First I removed the brakes button. It is attached with a tiny screw and a full shebang of plain and split lock washers. It also fits into the brake fluid tank with a small pin but that is not fastened to anything:

Taking off the lever only takes undoing one bolt:

It is M6 so it fits 10mm sockets and wrenches.

The nut has wings in the thread that cut into the bolt. This is apparently a version of a stop nut, but it will not survive being tightened too many times.

Once the lever is off, I could simply slide off a rubber gasket that protects the piston from dust and whatnot. Mine was super badly cracked from what life had for it. This is also similar to other rubber pieces that I discovered are quite cracked. Perhaps they weren't stored right before assembly.

Picture doesn't do it much justice, that thing pretty much fell apart. I now feel attached to it.

Behind the gasket was a retaining ring holding the piston in place. Or so it seemed it should be doing, but it certainly didn't as the ring had jumped off it's socket. Or maybe it never was in place. This seems to have been my only problem.

Once I got the washer out, the whole piston came out.

The thing is surprisingly long

and full of grime, too.

Didn't have my ruler handy, so in case I have to replace it, I took this picture. Apparently they cut them out of pennies, which would explain the quality. Also, appreciate my close photography skill.

This is to show where the ring fits on the piston. The front groove is for the rubber gasket.

It seemed that all I had to do was to fit the ring back in. There's a small groove on the inside of the tank where the ring fits to hold the cylinder in place. The problem was it is just damn too far from the front of this channel, and I just couldn't find retaining ring pliers with pins long enough. Neither would it reach from the side. I replaced those with something makeshift, but the long pins just weren't sturdy enough to bend the the ring.

The whole project took over a week, scoot parked dead with a rubber stopper firm in the brake fluid tank. Which was a crime in progress as these were the last good weather days we've had this season.

I ended up cutting my own pieces for my Channellock retaining ring pliers. It's advantage is in that it has interchangeable pieces that are held in place by a simple stop screw. The pieces themselves are quite apparently made of something suspiciously reminiscent of 3/32" Allen wrenches. At least they are hexagonal and the right size.

I got a few 3/32" hex keys from Ace Hardware for refreshing quarter a piece. Cut the bent part, and ground the other end on a tool sharpening disk. Well, I guess this is a tool, isn't it :) A touch of dremel would have probably worked fine, too. Just rotate the key to grind it down evenly.

This was enough to get the ring just next to thew groove. I had to take the throttle rocker off to get better access. There's a single nut holding the sleeve together and tightening it to the handlebar, right where the cable comes in. Loosen the nut and the throttle slides off. In fact, mine was pretty loose. Messing with the throttle will be like another post.

To get the ring in place, I just slid in a long flat screwdriver and gave it a few blows around the piston. And in it went!

Now that I think about it, a piece of pipe fitting around the piston may have done the whole job, if only the ring wouldn't get stuck dead in the channel (it is covered has a kind of very small groves on it, almost like for extra friction).

Well, that was it, the brakes worked in fact. Added extra fluid and bubbled it with the piston like I wrote in topping the brake fluid post.

I was all ready for that last Sunday ride of the season, and hey I didn't break anything in the process. To finalize such an awesome event, I decided to flush the fluid completely. In fact, you are supposed to change the brake fluid once a year or so as it seeps up moisture, and the winter was around the corner. To make the long story short, I managed to drain it through the bleed screw on the caliper, top it up and bubble it from the tank. This wasn't the whole deal as one is supposed to bleed the brakes when changing the brake fluid. And in that process I threaded the bleeding screw. Sure enough, screw is done of harder metal.

So to hell with the ride, I am stuck next week looking for and replacing the front brake caliper. Which is like, another post.

Removing the front handlebar cover

2007-11-13T06:55:00.000-08:00

This is a post on how to remove the top front cover, the thing with the silvery "windshield" on it. This is a way easier job than removing the dashboard panel, and it gives you access to all sort of things including brakes, throttle rocker, front fork and electronics. Since I had to do this so many times I'll make it into a separate post.

You can start by removing the mirrors. These are mounted with a single bolt each, and the nut is welded to the handlebar. Undo the bolts with a 6mm Allen wrench, then carefully lift the mirrors. There's a spacer and an offset washer on each bolt. Don't lose the spacers! The wires that power the turn blinkers should have some sort of Disconnect connectors so you can just unplug them. Or, if your luck is like mine, some wires will have some crappy connection slapped into the place - then this is a good time to replace those!

The bolts will probably be quite rusty. This is because they are plain steel (not even plated), and because water tends to collect on them. I have long replaced mine with stainless steel bolts.

Next, remove the side panes. These are small plastic pieces that go around the levers. There are two screws for each:

.

Undo all four screws on the dashboard:
Correction - there's a mistake on the picture below. All four screws must be undone!

And one extra bolt in front. This connects to the fork:

Now it's all undone. The panel mates with the dashboard panel with two pins. You will be able to see those since the side panes are out. Lift the corners slightly to release these pins.

Voila it's out now. Disconnect the connectors that power the small lights on the panel. These have small hooks on them that you have to press to undo the connector. The whole job only takes a Phillips screwdriver and a 6 mm Allen wrench.

Snow

2007-11-09T06:45:00.000-08:00

Looks like it's about the end of the season. It snows, and it's November 9th. Not bad at all for Minnesota! Then again it just stopped snowing, and we have a group ride on Sunday - I didn't join those for ages. Which is unfortunate as I have a rubber stopper in my brakes, which is not very ridable :)

Sandboxed

2007-11-08T08:23:00.000-08:00

Having my pages searchable through Google is perhaps the only way the whole affair can be made useful. So I regularly take a look at what Google has for me.

Well, just like my mom told me will happen :) I was successfully dropped from the Google index earlier this weak. As in "your site is not included in the Google index", goodbye and good night. This follows some super-low position in random queries and position #four early on. I should have normally been out of the sandbox about spring time - and so would simply post old stuff during the winter to keep it active.

Well, today I am back in the index. Heck, looks like I am up for these swings for the time being.

Something in the air

2007-10-28T20:28:00.000-07:00

I helped some girls to jump start their car this morning. With a smirk as of course this would never happen to me. Well, in the evening I headed to get my scoot from were I left it Saturday morning, only to discover that it takes me just under an hour to walk two miles and that my scooter wouldn't start. The starter would actually crank or at least it sounded like it tries to, but perhaps it couldn't run the spark or reach the compression. All the lights were dim, and the dashboard barely visible. You could literally see the lights go down in sync with starter cranking.

I had some problems with my battery and generator before as I changed the headlight sockets and headlights to higher wattage (there simply weren't such dim bulbs available; will post these pics later), and this was putting a strain on my battery. It always managed to start however. I disconnected the bulbs (now I can do this by reaching from behind the front wheel), but that didn't help.

Crank kick didn't work either, but then again it never did. I also happen to have my large kickstand taken off the bike as it scratched in the surface on turns, so I couldn't get the full range on the crank.

The battery is located right in front of the seat, under the "carpet" cover. My cover was a little loose when I was getting my Baron, so I had the dealer run a few screws through it to hold it down. The battery compartment itself is closed with Phillips #2 (the most common) screws, and the terminals are attached with Phillips head bolts. So all you'd need to get the battery out is a regular Phillips screwdriver. (Correction - the terminals are Phillips #3; you can still get it out with #2; see below)

Too bad I didn't happen to walk around with a screwdriver, and I didn't have one under the seat. Neither did I ever see what's below that cover. So I headed back for some tools.

Good news I've a got a charger that I won with all the raffle goodies at Rattle My Bones. The thing looked really puny, as it is sized more like a common household charger and nothing like huge boxes of car charging stations. Anyways I have it and today is the day for it to prove itself :-)

Getting the battery out was a piece of cake, except I had to use something to pry up the battery compartment cover. Of course the terminals didn't have any grease or whatever protection on them. Also the battery is smaller then the compartment and it looks like it continuously slides in that box, because of all the wear on the sides and the bottom. Good news it's easy to carry! Additionally, it has some seriously lame translation on the side, only the manual beats that. Some pictures when I'm through with this.

The charger turns out to be a serious little beast. You could tell it's made to be useful. The cord itself is 12 feet long. There are two interchangeable types of terminals, copper clamps and usual ring connector. Each is fused at the end of positive wire. Changeable terminals have special slip covers at the point they connect to the charger wire, apparently to prevent any shorts. The box only does 750mA = 0.75A which corresponds to overnight charging according to what it says on the battery (.7A for 5 to 10 hours or 3A for 1 hour). It also appears to be made with maintenance in mind. The instructions quite seriously describe what to do if you want to leave a battery plugged for more than a month. This is of course very useful for recreational vehicles, if only a little risky. The charger is made by Deltran and is called "Battery Tender Junior".

I can't locate my tester, so I am just plugging this thing in overnight. It says it's charging, but nothing is warming up even a little. Then again it's under one amp.

Day 2

In just under four hours, the charger was done charging the battery, changed its little light to flashing green and sent me a text message. So I took the battery to the scoot Sunday morning, and put it in and started the scoot and it wouldn't start just like the previous night. Turns out the killer switch was flipped. I must have not noticed it in the dark. I only had to use it twice so far, so it didn't even occur to me to check the thing. When the switch is flipped, the scoot behaves similarly to when the kick stand is out: the power is on but really weak, the starter cranks but the engine wouldn't start. Well, I'll keep it in mind, and yes, people do mess with parked scooters. So charging the battery probably wasn't needed after all. Heck, at least I got to take a look at it.

It started well and drove great. I only connected back one of the headlights. You'll often see this especially on motorcycles. The idea is not to tax the generator too much. The headlights I have now take twice as much power as the old ones (35W vs old 18W) , so having one on is just right. It certainly appears to be brighter now then before with two bulbs on - they just never got enough current to heat up to full brightness.

Pictures

I took it to place the battery properly, and finished this past weekend. Below are some images.

Battery compartment location:

Battery lid view. This is already when I am putting it back in, hence all the grease. There are two screw holes and two notches on the other side of the lid. The lid may be stuck a little. So there are two holes next to the screws. You can use a pick or a small screwdriver in these slits to lift the lid up. Didn't see them in the dark though :)

Here's a close-up on the pickup slit:

Battery close up:

The terminals are made of lead. There is a small square nut inside the terminal cage, and it actually slides out. So watch out for it when the terminal is undone. The screws turned out to be Phillips #3, which is one size larger the usual Phillips #2. You can still do it with #2 but just won't get them as tight. The screws are also quite soft as this is all made of lead.

Battery warnings aka "Method and Attention". Do not read this if you are still in coma after the manual. (Click for high resolution.)

That brick was certainly an overkill.

The charger

My positive terminal wasn't crimped right. So I crimped it a little extra to hold the wire. Since it isn't properly holding on the insulation, I've put plenty of electrical tape on it, just to give it some rigidity.

Putting it back in. To prevent the battery from rattling in the compartment, I've padded it with a piece of foam on the side. This is window lining foam for air conditioners, so it does not retain too much moisture.

The wire arrangement. There are two positive terminal wires. The electrical tape on the battery is simply to keep the wires in place.

There are various fancy things one can put on battery terminals to prevent them from corroding. The preferred one is still ol-good petroleum jelly. It wins for it's valuable combination of being extremely sticky, extremely water-repellent and extremely available. So piled plenty of it on each terminal after connecting all the wires etc.

There's extra grease on the rims. I didn't want any water to seep into the compartment from the top, so I've put some silicon grease around the edge. This is K&N silicon grease for sealing air filter compartments. Yes, they do all sorts of things. Even though there is no rubber gasket, I still think this is better then nothing. Compartment isn't sealed, there's a large hole on the side where the wires enter.

That's it, folks.

Topping brake fluid

2007-10-23T19:27:00.001-07:00

I had to top my front brake this weekend, which is now the second time that this happens. In whatever magic way, the fluid disappears from the system. Didn't take any pictures this time, but I have some from the first one. Lesson number one - don't ever work on your scoot in the dark :0

Diagnosis

As the time went, my front brake (or is it still brakes?) got ever more soft, all the way in till I would clamp my finger when braking. Not a good thing. And just as I learned the hard way the skill of keeping my fingers away, I had to push it all the way till it would touch the handle. Even then it would be too spongy to lock the ABS valve. So I prepared to bleed my brakes, though it turned out all that was needed was to add some brake fluid.

Getting there

The braking fluid reservoirs are under the square removable pieces next to the mirrors. Front brake's on the right, and the back brake is on the left.

The plastic screw that holds the cover in place is of the same kind that hold the "windshield". It has tiny thread that screws into and spreads out a plastic socket and therefore locks it in place. Any amount of force pushing the screw in will make the thread slip and the screw will simply stay in place. Also, if the socket is not compressed as it happens when it is all the way in, the screw has nothing to turn on and so will stay in place. To get this thing out, unscrew it with a regular Phillips #2 screwdriver, but try to apply minimum down force. Prying the whole thing out a little bit also helps to lock the screw and give it enough leverage so that it actually comes out.

Once the screw is out, you have to pry open the cover. It has two notches on the sides:

so you have to lift it up at the corner where the screw was and away from those notches to get the lid out. I used a pick and the second time just an Allan wrench stuck through the hole to pry it up a little.

Brake fluid

There are two things one needs to know about brake fluid. It is caustic and it's hygroscopic. Caustic means it will make the metal to rust, the paint to peel off and something in between those two if it gets on your skin or worse yet into thy eyes. This is also one thing that you want to read the label.

Hygroscopic means it will absorb moisture from the air in mad quantities. This is bad because the whole point of using this nasty shit is in that it doesn't boil up to very high temperatures. Water will degrade this property, and if it gets boiling, the vapor bubbles in the system will make the brakes spongy and pretty much useless. What this means is that you shouldn't leave the braking system open for any extended amount of time and same thing goes for the stuff in the bottle that you'll be using. It may also be a good idea to get a new bottle if the old one was lying around unsealed for too long.

Luckily, the stuff is under four bucks in AutoZone. Any automotive DOT3 or DOT4 brake fluid will do.

Topping up

Opening the tank was easy. There are two aluminum screws that hold the lid down. Then there's what looks like a rubber and then a silicone gasket, and both just lift up.

And there it was - an almost empty tank with some rusty stuff in it. Which meant that possible that's the end of the problem. Overfilled with enthusiasm, I poured some brake fluid down - just to overfill it immediately. The damn thing is just really small.

To figure out just how much I overfilled, I pressed down the brake lever. This produced a wonderfully upright stream of brake fluid washing off my forehead. In some sort that was a good thing - getting this into my eye would probably mean a trip to ER. It did mean some very long shower for me and a hose down for the scoot afterwards, though.

So be warned - anything other than slime-near-to-nothing speed when pressing the lever will squirt the fluid out of the tank. Remember the part about it being caustic?

Since I was preparing to bleed the brakes, I bought some clear vinyl tubing beforehand. This turned out extremely useful to get some of the fluid out:

Blocking the other end with my thumb would nicely hold some fluid in the tube that I could transfer to a glass jar.

When I was topping up this weekend, this was the method that I used for filling in. I cut a fresh piece of tubing and then would dip it into the canister, press the other end with my thumb, then transfer the stuff into the tank. Worked great and there was no overfill.

This time I was also way more careful with pressing the lever. I still wanted to do this as the level was next to nothing, so I wanted to see if there's air in the system. There were some bubbles popping up as I pumped it super slow, and after a few times I could see it's just circulating the fluid. Dunno if this was anyhow important tho.

The correct level of the brake fluid is such that it crosses the view window on the side of the tank. Filling to the top will mean your brakes may lock, grind on the disk and overheat, or you simply will not have enough range in the lever to control the effort.

Closing the container is no big deal. Put back the gaskets, close the lid and put in the screws. Both the screws and the tank are aluminum, which means they super easy to thread, so be gentle. Back goes the plastic cover and there it was all ready and working. The brakes come to full power after you've pumped them a few times.

So far it looks like I have to do this every 2000 km.

Out of warranty

2007-10-22T20:57:00.000-07:00

As I headed to suburbs this weekend, speedometer smoothly crossed 4000km. As far as I know, this is my warranty limit - 4k or 1 year, whichever comes first. Oh well. It was quite a lemon so far (which is why I started this log), so I wonder what's gonna come next.

When I bought my scoot, the contract with the dealer was a standard state form - and it had a clear statement that there's no implied warranty. So I had the dealer write it out - which he put as three thousand miles for parts and labor. Labor was provided by the dealership, and the parts by Baron distributor. Yet I think the official Baron's warranty has 4000 km on it, and the dealership has since moved and changed ownership. Oh well.

Happy birthday

2007-10-07T13:37:00.000-07:00

Hope it went well.

Squirrels

2007-10-04T19:55:00.000-07:00

Lately that I've leaving the scoot without the cover, squirrels have apparently got into a habit of taking a bite into my seat. All at around the same spot, a small but visible scratch. Today, one have actually bitten through the leather. As the little fuckers get crazier with colder weather, I'll have to go looking for a squirrel repellent.

Catching up

2007-10-02T17:53:00.000-07:00

O.k., so it's been quite a while since I had fixed this thing, and chose to ride it instead of posting about it :) Anyways, I will now be catching up on all the little things. It was also my third oil change this weekend.

Trying to remove the exhaust stud

2007-08-30T19:18:00.000-07:00

Tried to remove my broken exhaust stud this past weekend.

I first removed the lower side panels to get a little better access. Then I figured I had to remove a plastic shield that covers bottom part of the engine if I am ever to get a hold of that stud. This turned out to be somewhat notorious as the screws that hold it to the top part of the cover are hard to reach. Had to use a fine step offset ratchet screwdriver and it's was like $16.

The engine is made of aluminum, and the stud of steel. Steel expands less then aluminum and therefore the whole thing must be heated up before you can take the screw out. I ran for about five minutes on idle without my exhaust pipe. Figured the damage has already been done because I drove on this thing home with the exhaust pretty much disattached. There's soot on the inside of the engine exhaust, and I have no clue whether this is normal. Will see.

Anyways, as the thing wormed up a little, I just grabbed it with pliers and turned and failed miserably. It just wouldn't turn.

So this weekend I am all stocked up with vice grips, torch and fine set of drill bits just in case if I have to go nuclear on this thing. Wish me good like.

Getting noticed

2007-08-26T16:10:00.001-07:00

Here's a nice article about traffic congestion in NYC and New York Scooter Club on BBC.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6962970.stm

Planning your route

2007-08-25T19:30:00.000-07:00

I just used Google maps for the first time and noticed that they have "avoid highways" option, absolutely perfect for a scoot route planning! Something I've been longing for. Also, you can drag parts of the route around to sort of fine tune your trip.

Registering with technorati

2007-08-24T21:15:00.001-07:00

This is a technical post to prove my authorship of the blog to Technorati. Like what you are reading? Fave or link to me!

Technorati Profile

Grounded - broken exhaust stud

2007-08-21T20:17:00.000-07:00

I was pulling my thoughts together to write about this weekend's Rattle My Bones rally, and the party and the tiny Harley Davidson and my second crash but hey that wasn't meant to happen, at least not tonight.

As I started my scoot this afternoon, I heard a rather loud noise, coming right from under the engine. Luckily enough, the engine itself is OK, but one of the nuts that attaches the muffler to the engine exhaust port went loose.

There are two long screws sticking out of the engine, and the muffler is held in place on these by special long cap nuts. One of these nuts was gone. Well, I was stupid enough to go for a coffee and later to ride home on this. That last part of the trip was most special, as the engine rocked and rumbled like some sort of Harley. Scared off a pack of freshman that are being herded around the campus for the orientation these days.

Well as I got home it turned out the other nut was gone too, and the muffler was just hanging down there, completely off the screws.

Here's a short video just to show what is sounded like on the idle. The flash inside the engine is probably some kind of misfire. I could clearly see fire coming out.

So I loosened the muffler sleve nuts just to be able to move it around, and put the muffler onto the engine port. The screw protruding from the engine are standard M6 thread. I tried to tie it down with M6 screw, washer and a block washer:
Too bad I tried too hard - and broke one of these screws! Now the muffler is sort of in place, still making the noise, but not as much. It appears that as the nuts came off during the ride, a gasket that must have been b/n the muffler and the engine fell off. Now I'll be on the lookout for this piece. The broken screw may be just a stud, a sort of screw without head that can screw both ways in. I really hope to be able to extract and replace it.

So if you hear any weird noise from your exhaust, or simply for maintenance, check those nuts. I I am now at 2800km. And for Pete's sake, just don't drive it if it's loose! Gently fasten it up. It takes 10mm wrench or hex socket to operate a standard M6 nut, and so may be the same for those long nuts that fell off.

Loose Rear Wheel

2007-08-19T15:27:00.000-07:00

Soon after I got my Baron, the back wheel got wobbly. I could sense something was wrong with it from the weird feeling at the turns, and squeaky sound from the rear breaks at low speeds. Pun it on the stand, and there it was - the back wheel would wobble by almost an inch from side to side! My guess is the wheels are something they put together at the dealership, and it just wasn't done quite right.

Turned out tightening the rear wheal axle lug nut was all there was to it. The size of the nut I recall is 21 or 20 mm. The size matches typical sized for car wheel lug nut - the ring of nuts that you have to take off to replace your tire. So go dig in your car's spare tire compartment, and pull out the lug nut wrench. These are made as either single-size long bent socket wrenches or as two metal bars welded together forming a cross, each bar ending with a socket thus giving you four different sizes.

Mine got loose before I hit my first thousand kilometers. So if you just got your scoot, it might be a good idea to check yours. Here's how to do this:

Put your Baron on a stand. Check if the wheal wobbles horizontally. Press the rear brake (left handlebar), then try tightening the nut with your lug nut wrench. If it was lose, then you might have just saved yourself from some serious trouble! With the kind of wrench that I had, there wasn't much room because the muffler was in the way. So I'd turn the wrench a little, let lose the breaks, turn the wheel a little so there's room for the wrench movement again, and repeat. Here's a wider view:

Mileage

2007-08-12T18:53:00.000-07:00

The manual promises eighty miles a gallon for my Baron 150SX. I get about seventy. This in fact has been improving slightly since the initial "run-in", and I expect it to get even better with time. At over 200 lbs, I am also not the lightest driver, and I drive rather aggressively. So with all that, being at 70mhg isn't bad at all. Beats the Prius with all its funky technology anyways :)

I kept all receipts except one, and for that I restored how much I pumped from my bank statement. So here's the plot. Horizontal axis is how many gallons I've used. Vertical axis is mileage actually converted to miles. Yes, the "mileage" meter on the dashboard uses kilometers. Divide that reading by 1.602 to get miles.
That's a very consistent 70mpg mileage. Just think what we could have if scooters got popular enough that the manufacturers could economically use fuel saving technologies. Like better materials, fuel injection with exhaust oxygen sensors and so on.

Converted back to kilometers, that's about 115 km per gallon. This is rather convenient - I know I'll have to visit the gas station once the meter clocks another hundred.

Mostly for an experiment, I only use so-called non-oxygenated gas, which is plain gasoline without any ethanol added. As the story goes, there are three reasons named to use ethanol-free fuel.

It doesn't dissolve your engine

Plain gas is supposed to be better on your engine, though I am yet to come across actual evidence for this. Supposedly, alcohol in the gas can soften and dissolve plastics, especially in the carburettor but also in all the piping, fuel pump etc. Of course ethanol can do that, the only question is whether this scooter is made with plastics designed to tolerate some amount of ethanol. All the new cars in America are of course made to handle it well, but this thing is made in China and I have no clue whether it is OK to use "usual" pump gasoline with 10% of ethanol in it.

It does not clog or rust your engine

Water cannot dissolve in gas, but it can do so in presence of alcohol. So the usual, ethanol-enriched gas will soak up any ambient moisture that it is exposed to starting at the factory, traveling in the truck, then sitting in an underground tank at the gas station. If you leave this in your tank long enough, the gas will dry up, the carburettor will clog up whatever can do so will start rusting from within. Rusting is in fact what you call oxidizing iron.

The truth must be somewhere between the first and the second argument. Non-oxygenated gasoline is only legal to be used in Minnesota in boats, motorcycles, collector vehicles (old stuff with carburettors!), and small engines such as lawn mowers. I am sure they would have banned that as well, if only it was possible to feed it with the "oxygenated" fuel.

By the way, they call it non-oxy and non-oxygenated because the oil companies were sued when they tried to advertise it as "ethanol free". This supposedly implied that ethanol is bad and so amounted to defamation. Pretty weird, huh?

Non-oxy fuel gives you better mileage

This one is supposedly true. Mileage is supposed to go up by as much as 30%. Well, not that I am complaining at mine :)

How to find the stuff

I get mine at the gas station hosted by a company that repairs boats. I found it online, and you could perhaps Google it up for your area. If you do, please leave a comment! I will also post the stuff that I found for Minnesota.

Group Scooter Ride

2007-07-28T13:10:00.000-07:00

Scooters are cute. Kids wave at you. People on the road start talking to you. Girls kiss you. Well, or at least maybe they want to. To boost the cuteness effect, you just get more scooters out there! So I go for scooter rides. You get to know people, to see other scoots, to hear the owner's opinions whilst they are not trying to sell you stuff. You also learn about evens, dealerships and even places to get funny T-shirts. Then, there's the ride itself! I am in fact learning of great places in the cities I've never been to.

Riding is also a great way to improve your skills. You ride in a staggered formation, sort of a checker board pattern (hey did you read that motorcycle license book?). The formation goes like an animal pack, everybody at their position and sides of the lanes. You don't choose the path and you don't really choose the speed, so keeping the formation tight is quite an exercise! In fact you can see the newbies right away - they fly into the other side of the lane at turns. Come next time, it's all smooth and clean though.It doesn't take long to get accustomed to this, and you'll be a better and more confident rider on your own.

I found these rides through Google, which in fact pointed my to MeetUp.com , which turns out to be a great site for all sorts of interest groups. Check it out and see if there are scooter meetups in your area. Who knows maybe you'll get to meet great people. And if there isn't one, perhaps you could start your own!

Parking

2007-07-24T07:35:00.001-07:00

Scooters are easy to park. In fact, you can park them pretty much anywhere. That's because they are not exactly vehicles, but rather motorized bicycles, and bicycles are sort of like pedestrians, they can go wherever.

So at least in Twin Cities it is allowed to park a 50cc scooter (which qualifies as moped) anywhere a bicycle could park. That includes bicycle racks and simply sidewalks. Now that's cool.

Baron 150SX, while being a scooter is of course legally a motorcycle, not a moped. But I park it anywhere anyways. I park it at a bicycle ramp at school everyday, and I chained it on sidewalk in Downtown, right during a busy Friday evening. Now that's convenient! So far so good - no tickets, and it's been more then a month since I got it. Even if I cannot park at the racks, I can always get myself a motorcycle parking lot - those are like hundred bucks a year.

As scooter popularity grows and with the whole environment awareness thing, my bet is cops will get even more lenient towards scooters. As the cc-age grows, there will be more large scooters, and hopefully there will be ever more options for parking etc.

Starting the Baron Scooter Blog

2007-07-23T21:01:00.000-07:00

I recently got my first scooter - a Baron 150SX. The thing is marvelous, and I am riding ity everywhere. This will be the place were I will blog about my experience with riding and maintaining it. This is also my first bike!