It's alive!

"shop-teacher" (shop-teacher) 04/11/2020 at 19:38 • Filed to: two wheels good, Quarantine Project

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Back in December one of my neighbors moved, and was going to put this beat-up Chinesium dirt bike on the curb. Another neighbor grabbed it and saved it for me. I’m pretty sure it’s an SSR. It definitely has a Lifan 125cc engine, which is a Honda copy made in Thailand. I didn’t do anything with it over the winter though, because my garage is unheated and I didn’t feel like being cold.

I figured this would be a good quarantine project though, so I finally started working on it a couple weeks ago. First I drained the putrid gas, checked the oil, and checked for compression. Both were good.

As I dug around it. I realized the throttle was stuck shut. I pulled the carb off, but could not get the slide out of it to release it from the throttle cable.

So I dunked it in Pine Sol and left it behind for over a week. I also ordered a new carb for the whopping sum of $13.58. As gunked up as the old one was, I’m not messing with it . Surprisingly when the new one showed up, it’s a genuine Keihin and not a Chinese copy. Color me pleased.

While I waited, I decided to check the spark. I pulled the plug and grounded it to the head. Upon kicking it over, spark was present.

The carb showed up a few days ago. When I pulled the old carb out of the Pin e Sol, still the slide would not release from the carb. This time I resorted to brute force. A big screwdriver and a set of needlenoses busted it free from its cell.

I then put this goopy mess into the Sol for a couple hours, so I could get the throttle cable out easily.

That end achieved, I swapped the new carb on, which came complete with a new fuel filter, fed it with a new fuel line, gassed it up, and kicked it over!

Nothing.

I kicked again and again and again...

I then realized I left the shipping cover on the carb’s air intake ... D’oh!

That removed, it fired right up. It idled nicely, it revved nicely. Success!

Next up for this pile: piece the beat up body back together (the seat mounts to the body, so it’s a must have), change the oil, and order a front brake lever, as that part is M.I.A.

Will I be proper dirt biking? Of course not! But it’ll make a fun pit bike to tool around the race track ... whenever we can do such things again.

XJDano > shop-teacher 04/11/2020 at 21:04

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I am dealing with carb issues on my BIL Briggs and Stratton powered aerator. It got the goven er spring I ordered Sunday, arrived today (F-Ed part was it was less than 10 miles from my house and I should have just picked it up). Then I lost a gasket, and it’ll start but won’t turn from choke to run with out dying.

I think I’ll just buy a new carb... I don’t deal much with these small engines. So I got no clue what I’m looking at.

Awesome bike... sweet you got it running for cheap.

I did fix something today..

shop-teacher > XJDano 04/11/2020 at 22:26

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Honestly, the carbs are so cheap, it’s just not worth messing around with them. I’m pretty happy about getting this silly little thing going so cheaply.

Nice work  on the controller!

cg-guy > shop-teacher 04/13/2020 at 11:59

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Suggestion for the new seat. 

shop-teacher > cg-guy 04/13/2020 at 12:18

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LOL!