Buddy 125 Carb swap

allgreens · Post by **allgreens** » Tue Oct 07, 2014 4:43 pm

Buddy sat for a long time, took it out of the shed and it started up okay, and ran well for a week or more.

Then scooter started falling on it's face while accelerating. I did my best to clean the carb out. I cleaned the fuel tank and changed the fuel filter. Used seafoam.

The pilot jet keeps getting clogged. I've taken it apart so many times now to blast out the pilot jet, which i can see is clogged each time, but I am getting pretty worn out doing it all the time.

It could be the diaphragm? I tried using some gasket sealer there.

But I am ready to replace the carb if I need to. I may have done irreparable damage somewhere, who knows?

Are there better choices than the stock 125 carb out there? I'd love to hear any advice!

Thank you for your time,

Rob

BuddyRaton · Post by **BuddyRaton** » Wed Oct 08, 2014 11:25 am

What do you mean by did your best to clean the carb? Details will help us help you. Personally I would take it all the way apart and really give it a good cleaning, replace wear items and try it again.

It sounds like there may be some garf in the bowl that keeps clogging the jet. Not a big deal and not worth spending the coin and replacing the entire carb for. There are a lot of guides for rebuilding available. Just take your time and it will be good!

jrsjr · Post by **jrsjr** » Wed Oct 08, 2014 1:13 pm

BuddyRaton wrote:What do you mean by did your best to clean the carb? Details will help us help you. Personally I would take it all the way apart and really give it a good cleaning, replace wear items and try it again.

BuddyRaton, thank you for chiming in on this. I wrote a long answer then deleted it because it took me 500 words to ask that simple question.

Allgreens, please understand we're not trying to imply that you didn't do your best cleaning the carb. The thing is, guys like BuddyRaton are used to pulling scooters out of barns that have been laying around since Nixon was President and cleaning them up. That requires a whole different level of effort, like soaking the whole carb body in a powerful solvent for days then blowing it out with pressurized air.

The thing is, since you changed the fuel filter, the only thing downstream of that is the fuel line and then the carb body and then the pilot jet. My guess is that the Seafoam and gas are acting as a solvent and slowly breaking up crud that's in that passageway in the carb. (Now that I think about it, I'd also drop by an auto parts place and swap out the fuel line between the fuel filter and the carb, too) If there's crud in the carb body that's not easy to clean, it really may be necessary to pull it down and soak it in a strong solvent, which is not something that everybody is equipped to do. If that's the case, you might be better off to let your shop do that job.

az_slynch · Post by **az_slynch** » Wed Oct 08, 2014 7:35 pm

I've found that carb cleaner does a decent job cleaning up the petroleum-based deposits, but doesn't do much to scuzz left by ethanol.

One trick I've learned recently is to soak the carburetor body in some CLR. It works pretty well for cleaning up the scale and scuzz left by ethanol-imbued fuels. Like any cleaner, don't leave the part in there too long. You'll know if you have deposits if you see streams of bubbles coming off of the parts; when the bubbles stop, take the parts out and rinse them off well. Blow them dry with compressed air.

On last tangential item: have you pulled the mixture screw? This should come out in order to really clean things. Before removing the pilot screw, note how many turns it is set out from fully seated. Screw it all the way in, counting the turns from where it's set currently. That way, when you re-install it, you just need to run it all the way back in, and back it out by the turns you counted in order to get the mix back where you started.

Benzo Mike · Post by **Benzo Mike** » Wed Oct 08, 2014 7:56 pm

Straight Pine-Sol is an AMAZING carb cleaner. Soak for a couple days, you will be amazed. Caveats:

Nothing made from rubber. No O-rings, certainly not the slide diaphragms.

Only raw aluminum, brass, or stainless. Anything that is varnished carbon steel (like the throttle linkage, return spring, etc) will have the varnish stripped and will look like crap and promptly rust.

This stuff is powerful. You have been warned.

ScooterDave · Post by **ScooterDave** » Sun Oct 12, 2014 5:13 am

Benzo Mike wrote:Straight Pine-Sol is an AMAZING carb cleaner. Soak for a couple days, you will be amazed

+1 on the Pine-Sol

BuddyRaton · Post by **BuddyRaton** » Sun Oct 12, 2014 12:53 pm

ScooterDave wrote:
Benzo Mike wrote:Straight Pine-Sol is an AMAZING carb cleaner. Soak for a couple days, you will be amazed
+1 on the Pine-Sol

Dude...where have you been hiding?