My
Kragen Zooma Scooter
About
four years ago I received my scooter from my neighbor and he said I could just
fix it up and it was mine. When I first started to work on my scooter, it was
to just get it started and running well. So back in high school I took a small
engines class and what I had to do was I took the carburetor and disassembled
it. After I cleaned it and put it all back together then put it on the scooter
and got the scooter to run. I then had to do a little adjusting and finally got
my scooter to idle. A week or so after that I went to go and tune it when my
throttle cable broke. And I haven’t worked on it since then, but I thought that
this would be a good project because all I would have to do is replace parts
and finish tuning the scooter up and that’s it.
When I decided to
do this project I had to figure out what I wanted to replace and to be able to
fulfill the five hours. So I chose to not only replace but upgrade some of my
parts and that would help me to have the full five hours. I bought my parts off
of ScooterParts4Less.com because they had parts for my exact scooter so I was
able to find the right parts I needed. Whereas the other websites I looked at
had parts similar but not exact so I went with the ones I knew would fit and I
would not have any problems. I chose to replace my gas tank first because my
old one is cracked and has duct tape to try and help it not to leek.
So to replace the gas
tank, first I had to unhook the gas lines from the carburetor then all I had to
do was to take the two nuts and bolts off. I had to use an allen wrench and a
socket wrench to take each bolt off. I did not have the right socket for the
nut so I had to be careful as I undid the bolts so I would not strip the nuts.
Luckily I did not have to take the gas out of the tank so it made it a whole
lot easier. Then once the old gas tank was off I had to be careful putting on
the new one with the same bolts so I would not strip them once again.
Next I had to change
out the carburetor with the new one and that took a lot longer because I had to
unscrew two screws which were stripped so it was hard to get those out. I also
had to scrap off the gasket and clean off the area. I then I had to take the
new carburetor and assembled that together which I did not know I had to do. I
had to be careful with doing that because lots of little pieces and they had to
fit a certain way. The new air intake assembly had to be put together as well
and then I screwed the carburetor and the air intake together. 
After I got those
together I put the new gasket on the motor and then I added the carburetor with
two new screws that came with the intake. I screwed those in with an allen
wrench which is nice because those do not strip easily. I then was able to put
the air filter on it and attach the cover on with the screw it comes with. Next
I took the gas lines from the gas tank to the bottom of the carburetor. One for
the gas to flow in and the other for the excess gas to flow back into the tank
to be reused.
Next I took the
throttle assembly and put that together which I had to get the new performance
throttle cable and run that through that throttle assembly. I did that by
screwing on the throttle cable to the base of the assembly and attached the end
of the cable to the handle. I then hammered the old grips off of the handlebars
and put the new ones on while screwing the assembly to the handlebars.
I took the cable and ran it along the body of my scooter and attached
zip ties along the way as well. I slid the cable through the hole on the
carburetor and attached it to the throttle control.
I then pulled on the
throttle to make sure it worked and it did so that part was done. Now my
scooter was done as far as putting together all the parts and putting them on
the scooter, but now I had to do all the adjustments o the scooter to make sure
it would run to the best of its abilities.
Not all the parts require adjustments but the ones that do can be
difficult.
First I had to go and get gas for my scooter
and I had to mix the gas with oil. Mixing the oil with the gas is not hard but
can be messy sometimes. All scooters are different with what ratio you should use
but I know that my scooter uses 50:1 ratio and my oil bottle has a cool measuring
cup so I know exactly how much to put in. Which I mixed he oil and gas I poured
it into the gas tank of my scooter. The next thing I had to do was get the gas
to flow through the engine so there is a bubble on the bottom of the carburetor.
I had to continually push that until the gas fills the bubble up and also flows
back into the gas tank. I needed to do this because there needs to be enough
gas through the whole system or it will not work properly.
I then grabbed my screwdriver because I now
had to adjust the throttle on the carburetor which can be hard to do sometimes.
There is a little screw that is on the top of the carburetor and that helps the
engine idle without dying. So I pulled the pull start and got the engine going
and I had to sit there and turn the screw back and forth to find the right
place, which is not fun because if you turn it to far then the engine will die
and you will have to start it again. I finally found the right spot for the
screw so it would finally idle by itself. I then had to open the choke, which
is on the side of the carburetor, and find how far I could open that without my
scooter dying on me. I found out I can open it up about half way up before it
started to die.
Next I had to adjust the actual throttle so
that I do not have to crank the handle too hard to get it to go. I opened up
the throttle and moved the cable that is on the inside back so it is tight.
Then of course I had to ride it just to make sure everything was running the
way it was supposed to. There I realized that I needed to adjust the chain back
to make it tight. Once I got the chain tight I noticed that the tires were low
so I rode over to the gas station and filled up the tires with air so that my
scooter would ride smoother. In total it took me about six hours to do put all
the parts together, attach them on to the scooter, and to adjust everything as
well. It is fun to ride to school and it does not use that much gas so I can
save money on gas. Here is the finally picture of the project of it all
finished.
