CY150 Paladin cutting out By cruiserbill (Read 574 times)

[cruiserbill]

Hello everyone! I am new around here and new to scooters too. My wife bought a Taotao Paladin CY150 used. We had problems right from the start. It would start and idle, but giving it any throttle would kill it. The nuts mounting the exhaust to the head were missing and the exhaust gasket had seen better days. The headlights were not working either.

So, I bought a new carb from Eagle, an exhaust gasket, and a headlight. Repaired the exhaust, installed the carb and the headlight. Now it fired up and was running pretty good. Then my wife took it for a spin and it started dying and wouldn't stay running. The headlight is still not working either.

Fast forward 3 or 4 weeks and I figured I would install a new fuel filter and adjust the valves. But first I will try and ride it and refresh my memory on how it was acting. Well it started right up and other than an idle adjustment, it was running pretty good. So out to the open road I went! I got it up to 50mph once, but it was cutting out and really not running right. I took it out a couple more times and can only get it to 45-48mph and it is still cutting out. It doesn't seem like a miss, but some other problem. 

It is idling really nicely now, so I figure I will let it sit over night, adjust the valves, and install the fuel filter and see how it acts from there. After reading on here, I realized I probably didn't buy the best carb. 

I have no clue about the headlight though.

Any thoughts are certainly welcome on how I should proceed. Sorry for the dissertation!!

Bill

[crwford]

are you running 91 octane or higher? is plug wire on good and tight? check for vacuum leaks, For lights check you switch and check high and low switch make sure bulbs are good and most of all make sure you have a good ground.

[cruiserbill]

May 11, 2016 18:07:24 GMT -6 crwford said:

are you running 91 octane or higher? is plug wire on good and tight? check for vacuum leaks, For lights check you switch and check high and low switch make sure bulbs are good and most of all make sure you have a good ground.

To be honest, I have no idea what octane I put in it. I did put some seafoam in it though to try and get it running, but ended up replacing the carb anyway. I will check the plug and plug wire tomorrow and make sure all is good there. Once I get the thing running right I will start on the headlights. There is only just shy of 400 miles in it so it is in fairly new condition. I shall return and report.

[cyborg]

Any luck?

[cruiserbill]

Not yet; I started to tear into it and things got in the way. Then we went camping and just got back. Will be working on this week though.

[cruiserbill]

What a time just getting access to change the plug and adjust the valves. They really should make it a bit easier on ya. Anyway, I got it torn down. So far I have don anything other than look it all over. I found that the plug wire going into the boot didn't seem to be seated in there properly. The plug boot screw that the plug wire goes onto is badly rusted giving further evidence the wire wasn't seated right.

So, I will order a new plug wire and boot. I am getting ready to adjust the valves and replace the plug when I figure out the plug gap and where TDC is.

Can anyone tell me a good place online to buy scooter parts?

[cyborg]

Scrappy dog or any of the guys that have a scrolling ad at the top of the page

[cruiserbill]

Changed out the plug - looked nice light brown. Valves were about .003; adjusted them to .004. Changed out the fuel filter.

Now just waiting on the plug wire to be delivered in a few days.

[cruiserbill]

Alrighty then, got the new ignition coil/plug wire assembly. Put that on. Found some fuel hose I had saved previously and extended the hoses for the fuel filter.

So, it has a new plug, ignition coil and plug wire, and valves adjusted. I adjusted the throttle cable because it had a small bit of slack in it.

Now to drain the old gas and refill with 91 and figure out why the headlights aren't working before I put all the plastic back on.

[cyborg]

As long as you have it apart check the bulb(s) for the headlite

[cruiserbill]

May 27, 2016 7:30:42 GMT -6 cyborg said:

As long as you have it apart check the bulb(s) for the headline

I replaced one of them already, but it didn't work. The old one was obviously bad though.

[cruiserbill]

I found one of the running lights overheated, melted some of the plastic around it and basically cracked in two. On some of the connectors there was evidence of a little melting from overheating. The bigger of the two headlight bulbs still looked good and the other is new. I looked inside the switch housing on the handle bar, but really couldn't tell if anything was bad in there or not.

I couldn't find any grounds to speak of other than the battery ground wire which has a smaller ground wire with it; they were both grounded to the valve cover. Other than that, I really couldn't see anything that would cause the overheating. I am inclined to buy a new headlight assembly ($60) and an new switch assembly ($30) and go from there. Not really sure what else to do though I could break out the multimeter and see what road that leads me down (pun intended) LOL

[cyborg]

I'd wager a guess there's a short somewhere,, but you'd think it would pop the main before anything got damaged

[cruiserbill]

Agreed. The only fuse I found was the smaller power lead that goes to the battery. It appears to be good, though I didn't thoroughly test it.

[cruiserbill]

Does anyone know where I can get a wiring diagram for this TaoTao CY 150 Paladin?