Dazed and confused

[qaz]

I have a 1999 ELITE 50s that I derestricted, 16,000 miles on odometer, new Honda air filter. I put a new By starter on it last fall. While putting the carb back on the manifold, I put the spacer on upside down. While checking to see if the choke was working properly during this past spring, I noticed the mistake and fixed it. It ran like a scalded dog before putting the spacer in upside down, afterwards you could tell something was not right, but I could not find the problem. For the past month the scooter runs great sometimes and other times it acts as if it is stopped up (sluggish and down in power across the rev band).

Any ideas what is wrong and what I should be looking for?

[Wheelman-111]

Greetings:

It's frightfully easy to strip the carb threads if you eat your Wheaties. Carb jiggles a little over bad roads, creating intermittent air leaks. Make sure you didn't put the brown Insulator on backwards, too. It goes:
Metal-rubber-plastic-rubber metal.

Metal-rubber-rubber-plastic-metal not so much.

[qaz]

Thanks Wheelman, I will check this tomorrow. Could the exhaust pipe have clogged up while running too rich for 6 months?