Hey, I hadn't been here for a while. Being busy with life. After some greedy bastards got their way and made mandatory in Colombia to have a driver's license, emissions and mechanical condition certificates, traffic accident insurance and transit department registration in order to legally ride a motorised bike, I took off my Happy Time from my all terrain frame. Then I got a job out of the big city and moved out to a smaller town, but also talked with other riders I would see in the street, and realised the police doesn't bother to enforce those new laws. So I reinstalled the motor a month ago to commute to work. My job is in an isolated industrial park out of town, and it used to take me some 15 minutes to get there, going 95% or more of the time full throttle. Since last week I noted my speed (measured around 25 mph) was beginning to drop, as was the acceleration. The last two days I was noticeably slower and this afternoon I barely made it back home with just the same speed if not less than if I was pedalling. Note I'm at 8200 ft above sea level so that probably limits he motor a lot. At the same time it began to low down I noticed a leak of dark brown fluid from the cylinder casing, on the joint with he head and the joint with the exhaust. I run on a 20:1 mix.
Today after I go home I planned to just replace the motor with a barely used one a friend gave me weeks ago, but I decided to inspect this one first. I'm working between 60 and 70 hours a week, so I wasn't particularly in the mood of installing another motor if possible. I removed the exhaust and the cylinder head, to find most of the inside of the block, the top of the piston and the plug covered by a black crust. I have two questions. One is if this is the result of normal use with poor maintenance, or an indication of a bad mix or another inappropriate procedure. The other question, and the main one, is if the poor thing can be salvaged without employing machine tools. Can the parts be safely cleaned with unmixed gasoline and a plastic brush? May be that crust needs something harder, like a metallic brush, at the risk of damaging it even further? Is cleaning this motor a waste of time and I should just install the other one?
These aren't the best pictures but they may give you a better idea of what my options are, my shared backyard doesn't have the best illumination and it was night time already when I took them:
Today after I go home I planned to just replace the motor with a barely used one a friend gave me weeks ago, but I decided to inspect this one first. I'm working between 60 and 70 hours a week, so I wasn't particularly in the mood of installing another motor if possible. I removed the exhaust and the cylinder head, to find most of the inside of the block, the top of the piston and the plug covered by a black crust. I have two questions. One is if this is the result of normal use with poor maintenance, or an indication of a bad mix or another inappropriate procedure. The other question, and the main one, is if the poor thing can be salvaged without employing machine tools. Can the parts be safely cleaned with unmixed gasoline and a plastic brush? May be that crust needs something harder, like a metallic brush, at the risk of damaging it even further? Is cleaning this motor a waste of time and I should just install the other one?
These aren't the best pictures but they may give you a better idea of what my options are, my shared backyard doesn't have the best illumination and it was night time already when I took them:
