back on the road!

[Scootin]

I am back on the road! Scooter has been down for almost 2 weeks. (See thread-"my scooter pimped me") www.taishanowners.proboards41.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=1156512893

My initial thoughts turned out ot be correct. My kickstart return spring is bent & a tooth broke off the gear. (Starting pivot-per the manual) My battery was also dead. So far it looks like it is going to cost me $50(US) to fix it. Not having $50 sitting around, I elected to come up with $30 for a new battery to get back on the road. Luckily for me it has rained a lot in the last 2 weeks & I only missed about 4 days of riding weather

[exlad]

$50 Thats about £20 aint it

You must be poor sunny ;D

[Scootin]

26.5 Pounds to be exact. Yup poor at the moment-my hours were cut in half on my 2nd job back in July. (I work 2 jobs so that my wife can stay home with our kids-not school age yet) My hours should be going back up next week

[px166bajaj]

What do you do for a living? Was it the original battery?

[Scootin]

Job #1 Service dispatcher for an Copier/Fax/scanner dealer
Job #2 Driver for my father's Flower shop
Job #3 Ebay Trading Assistant

It was the 2nd battery-first battery did not make it throught the first 2 months. Only reason this went bad was that I left it on the scooter last winter. (Doh!)

[mii]

Hopefully I'll be on the road too at the end of this or beginning of the next month. I'm just about to leave and get my replacement carb, it's waiting me at the postoffice..still need to order the valves, the reseller is back at finlad@10.9 so I can't place order before that. Opted to change both of the valves, so I can clean all the carbon build up from the cylinders head. Nasty stuff

Hope the weather still gets better, so you can enjoy your scooter

[Scootin]

Sounds like your scooter has had a lot of use (Or abuse) prior to becoming your scooter

[mii]

Indeed, that's what it sounds like. Problem is, these things are way too cheap. People just beat them up all their life and then sell them for 1/5 of the original price and buy a new one. That's in my opinion only reason for people to call these things "trash". Yeah, that's what they are if you treat them like that.

Heeh. Few weeks ago I replaced the part that broke on your kickstart. Too bad I still need this part: www.jm-racing.fi/product_details.php?p=381 to make it work. Propably bendix and battery need to be replaced too, but those things can wait..

..yeah. A lot of abuse, hopefully not too much. I'm sure just like you, I get my ride working eventually, it's just going to take time, since we "poor" people don't have money to buy all the parts at once

[Scootin]

mii said:

Problem is, People just beat them up all their life and then sell them for 1/5 of the original price and buy a new one. That's in my opinion only reason for people to call these things "trash". Yeah, that's what they are if you treat them like that.

it's just going to take time, since we "poor" people don't have money to buy all the parts at once

Unfortunatly some people just dont care. The beat them up & sell problem is not rampant here YET,as scooters have only recently started to gain mainstream popularity. I am sure it will eventually come down to that. Fortunatly for me, There is nothing else wrong with mine-I can continue to use it. My scooter is my main vehicle for commuting & light shopping. My Jeep only goes on the road when the family goes out-or it is raining/snowing.
Hang in there-sounds like you are working through it & getting close.

[Scootin]

As an aside, there are quite a lot of Fins here in Michigan. One of my best friends-his mother was Finnish (I say was-because she died a few years ago.) Here in my town there is a Finnish-American club. (Which she was president of)

[mii]

I think I already mentioned every third moped/scooter sold at Finland is made in China. Online the cheapest place sells these things 599e + 50e for them to bring it on to your yard. Not bad, but results people with money indeed beating these things. Too cheap is easy to mistreat

The amount of Fins on your area is easy to explain - your nature looks a lot like ours. It's easy to move somewhere, that looks and feels like home ..that's the reason quite a lot of exchange students come to around Michigan too. If I remember right, we had one student from states somewhere around the Michigan area. She even learned to talk Finnish, which is quite an achievement. You can ask your friend how hard it is for foreigner to try and learn it

[Scootin]

Most likely Michigan State University-(Just a few miles from me)They have students from all over the world.

heehee-my friend cant even speak Finnish, other than knowing a few words His brother is better at it-he can actually speak it & translate as well. But he is very good with languages

[mii]

It's funny our government seems to believe all of the Fins are born good with languages. When we start third grade, we start learning english. When we start 7th grade, we also have to learn swedish and possibly french or german. I took german - this adds up to basic understanding of 3 foreing languages, though, english skills are quite extensive compared the other two. After the elementary school (9 years) we can talk and understand 3 foreign languages + our native language. Not bad

[Scootin]

Not bad at all
Wish we had something like that when I was in school... It was still an elective then. Nowadays I think it is a requirement to take at least 1 foreign language course.
English is very complicated to people who don't grow up speaking it. Propably has a lot to do with modern English having many German,French & Latin/Roman words sprinkled into it & the various pronunciations of similarly spelled words.