My year and a half in a small-engine shop left me with complete contempt for crappy little Chinese engines, but this one seems to have survived its misuse quite well. It was reluctant to start in the 25-degree morning, but in hindsight even that may be because I haven’t yet located the choke lever among the confusing controls. The battery held a good charge overnight, which was my big question. Once warmed up, the engine ran great. I took it to shit-shoveling this morning and the gearbox is still crisp, the clutch is fine. Except for a metric buttload of missing bolts and some problem with the brakelight switch the whole thing works perfectly.
The big one…well, it’s got good spark and the battery might be salvageable. It shows clear signs of having been worked on by a frustrated teenager and the filter box was full of water, which is never a good sign, but I see no clear sign of corrosion. The choke cable was chingered up and at first I thought it was frozen but it turned out to just be that teenager: Now as far as I can tell the valve is opening and closing freely. I let the fuel line run for a bit in hopes of draining off any water in the tank and really ought to drain the whole thing but don’t have any to replace it with at the moment. I ran the battery low and only got it to hit a couple of times, but it did hit a couple of times so all is not lost. Still, I think I’m gonna end up taking the carb apart this afternoon to see what’s what.
My family thinks I’m able to fix anything so I find myself working ATV/UTV machines way more than I want. I have found that the ethanol in fuel is hell on the fuel systems on these things and the first thing I check is the low speed or idle jets. The small orifice in these gunks up quick. I hates me some ethanol.
I use 88 or 91 octane fuel in my 2 stroke Rokon for this very reason. I’ve heard it doesn’t start as well when hot, but never noticed a difference.