I painted the rear wheels with silver Nason urethane and then mounted the new tires. The wheels are just fabricated out of thin sheet metal and it is a bit worrisome to think I'll be driving the scooter at 50 mph on these puppies:
After installing the tires on the wheels by hand, and then installing them on the scooter, I took the scooter out for a test run and found that the rear end had a very bad bounce at 30 mph, making it almost undriveable. The bounce clears up above 32 mph, and the ride was pretty smooth riding at 45 mph. I took the tires and wheels to the local tire shop and spun them on their balancer to see what was going on. Both new tires were pretty similar to each other and both out of round. I was running 30 PSI in the rear tires per the workshop manual, even though the max pressure rating on the sidewalls is 25 PSI. I dropped the pressure down to 20 PSI, and still had some bounce, but the scooter was now at least driveable. I was running the old maypops at 30 PSI and they had no bounce.
Unfortunately, I made one other change at the same time as changing the tires. There is a grease fitting on the swivel joint at the junction of the main frame and the rear subframe. The round end of the Chinese grease fitting wouldn't fit into my grease gun, and the swivel joint was clearly dry as the scooter creaked loudly with considerable resistance when I sat on the scooter and tilted it side to side. I picked up a metric thread grease fitting at O'Reillys that had a standard end on it, and greased the joint and the creaking went away, and the tilting became smooth. I'm not sure if greasing that fitting contributed to the rear end bouncing or not. Having it stiff may have had a damping effect. Unfortunately, I didn't make a test run with the new tires before I greased the joint. There is a massive single shock and spring that supports the rear end, and I'll have to try to source a new rear shock when I get to it and see if that helps.
In any event, I discovered a more significant problem in my test runs. The clutch would start dragging after riding the scooter for 5 minutes or so. After a 10 minute ride, it would be tough to sit at a stoplight as the clutch would be dragging pretty hard. I decided to go for a 15 mile high speed test run, so I rode 7 miles down the highway at 45-50 mph, and then started back home. About a mile from home, the scooter suddenly picked up a new serious vibration, and when I got to the only stop sign on the route, I found that the clutch was completely locked up and the engine immediately stalled when I came to a stop. When I start the scooter in a difficult situation, I usually put the tilt lock on, and then push the foot brake that operates both rear brakes. That locks the rear brakes and is called the "emergency brake". It also operates the rear brake light switch and that permits the starter to be engaged. I do this instead of holding the front brake lever, as it gives me more freedom to operating the throttle without holding the brake lever on. Luckily, the battery was fully charged, and I was able to start the engine, and the scooter immediately moved forward even thought the tilt lock and emergency brake was still on. I managed to get the tilt lock off without crashing the scooter, but I forgot to push on the foot brake to release the emergency brakes, and so drove home with the rear brakes on. When I got home, the rear brakes were very hot and everything was pretty much locked up. I put the scooter away and went to bed pretty discouraged. So far I have put about 130 KM on the scooter since I got it running.
This morning, the rear brakes seem OK, but the clutch is still locked up. I'm going down to the sign shop first thing to pick up the signs they made for the scooter. I'm getting two "MP-150F-JCL" vinyl decals, one for each side, and two "
ABS" decals that go on either side of the vertical parts of the front fender. These scooters came with various logos depending on the reseller. Mine is a JCL, not an Automoto or a Vogue. When I get home, I'll apply the signs, and then start the job of removing the side cover and see what is going on in there. I found this video that shows pretty well the steps to remove the side cover:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIq8mgM8M0A
I'm still pretty discouraged this morning... even if the clutch is easy to fix, I need to do something about the rear end bouncing.
...following.
