Page 1 of 1
Centrifugal Clutch
Posted: Tue Sep 18, 2007 11:01 pm
by HondaSky
If I could get some help with this, I would be incredibly grateful. This is my scooter:
I THINK (that's a key word here because I have little idea what's going on) I'm having problems with the Centrifugal Clutch. It basically has gone through three stages of running since I've purchased it:
First, it would idle fine and drive well enough except it couldn't get up this steep, steep hill by my house without me kicking along.
Second, it would not idle but would be in gear right when I started it. However, now it could go up the steep, steep hill by my house without the kicking along. This of course made me happy.
Third, I was driving it down my street and then all of a sudden the RPMs went way up like it had fallen out of gear. I can now only go a top speed of 20 km/h.
Does anyone have suggestions? You don't know how much I would appreciate some help. Here's one more picture if it helps:

Posted: Tue Sep 18, 2007 11:11 pm
by Dac
thats an awesome scooter! i never heard of it before but im going to look into it some. im not really sure about your problem though
Thanks
Posted: Tue Sep 18, 2007 11:15 pm
by HondaSky
Seriously! Thank you so much. Just knowing that someone looked at my post makes me feel so good. I'm scouring the boards right now to see if I can find something similar. I saw that someone else recently had problems with their scooter not idling, which mine doesn't right now. Maybe my problem is similar.
Posted: Tue Sep 18, 2007 11:44 pm
by Dac
well start with the basics, clean your air filter, it looks a bit dirty.
clean your carb. almost every idle problem is do to carb settings being wrong. Check your plug, i bet you it needs to be replaced. if it dosnt it couldn't hurt. if you can get your hands on a compression gauge and see what you got. you might need to replace your rings. low compression can cause all around lack of power, hard to start and it wont want to idle.
a few more questions... what year is that thing? and if you dont mind were are you from. when i googled honda sky they had new ones but there not sold in the north American.
Posted: Wed Sep 19, 2007 9:41 am
by No_Stopping_A_Spree
Clean the carb and adjust the two screws and then do a plug chop..since the jets are so tiny in these little carbs they get plugged easily..The plug chop will tell you if its running lean, rich or normal
Nice
Posted: Wed Sep 19, 2007 11:21 am
by HondaSky
I think you guys are right on the money so far. I was really afraid it was something wrong with the clutch. I'll work on the carb later today and report how it went.
Day One Results
Posted: Wed Sep 19, 2007 8:06 pm
by HondaSky
Cleaned the carb and unfortunately no change. Here's another symptom of my unknown problem though. I'm leaning towards the centrifugal clutch.
It starts beautifully. When I just have it on the stand it looks like the clutch is in because the back tire is spinning even when I haven't applied the gas. I did some fine tuning with the carb (by adjusting the screws ion the side) and I can get it to stop spinning, but I think my problem is beyond this.
When I get on the scooter and try motoring around. I have to apply the gas slowly to get to even a slow speed (25 km/h). So it doesn't move well with a load on it. I'll rev it up and I can hear the motor revving really high but I'm not going any faster.
I'm a bit discouraged because I know if the problem is the centrifugal clutch it could be a big problem.
So my guess right now is that the problem is the clutch. It's as if the clutch is able to really grab hard enough to get the back wheel moving. That's my guess. Any advice would be very much appreciated.
Additional Info:
1983ish Honda Sky (the speedometer is only in km/h, and it has japanese writing all over the place. My guess is that this was a model only sold in Japan and that it somehow made it over to America)
However it looks a lot like the 1980s Honda Spree models so I think they are quite similar.
The Driven Face is TOAST!
Posted: Mon Oct 08, 2007 4:37 pm
by HondaSky
I just ordered a new clutch for my Honda Sky/Spree. The clutch was BARE BONE! I'll post some pictures later and describe what I'm doing so other people who have this problem can have a guide.
Posted: Mon Oct 08, 2007 4:39 pm
by Kenny_McCormic
I was gonna say i think your clutch pads are gone
Posted: Wed Oct 10, 2007 1:48 am
by stillspeeding
Pull the trans cover off and learn the parts which are easy unless you have a wet clutch/chain drive? the spree will never climb hills and honda built it as a joke with leftover parts from several other scoots!
Posted: Wed Oct 10, 2007 9:56 pm
by Kenny_McCormic
stillspeeding wrote:
the spree will never climb hills and honda built it as a joke with leftover parts from several other scoots!
This is why we hate you. Spree will climb hills with a slight gearing change, it was built with too high of gearing.
Posted: Wed Oct 10, 2007 10:32 pm
by Dac
stillspeeding wrote:Pull the trans cover off and learn the parts which are easy unless you have a wet clutch/chain drive? the spree will never climb hills and honda built it as a joke with leftover parts from several other scoots!

I'm learning a lot about my scooter, but it still won't work
Posted: Sat Oct 27, 2007 9:01 pm
by HondaSky
I need some help diagnosing this problem.
So just as an update. I finally got the new clutch of eBay. Fantastic. I just replaced the whole thing the clutch is almost good as new. I'm really happy about that.
My new problem that I need help diagnosing is not being able to start it. Okay first things first:
Basically, I actually own a 1982 Honda Sky, which is pretty much Japan and Russia's version of the Spree. Like I said, the 1985 Spree clutch I bought fit beautifully and the back wheel moves fine. The clutch seems to be on their beautiful so I don't think this is the problem.
However when I tried to kick start, the kick start got jammed and wouldn't move. I opened up the box again and began looking around. This is my question:
There is the kick start gear which moves another small gear attached to a big gear WHICH is supposed to move a smaller gear WHICH is attached to the whole mechanism that the pistons should spin when the engine is going while driving.
Basically, when I kick the kick start it gets jammed in that it cannot move the picture gear of interest.
Should the kick start be able to move this mechanical unit?
If the battery is completely dead, which it is, should this be stopping me from even kick starting it? Because I thought a kick start is supposed to start it when my electric can't.
Any help would be appreciated. Thank you SO much for the posts thus far. It has helped a lot.
To recap: the kick start is not able to move "the part" I think it's supposed to move. And when I say the part I mean the whole mechanism that is connected with the engine.
If this is a bunch of garble, just tell me and I'll try posting a better explanation.

Posted: Sun Oct 28, 2007 4:28 am
by tru72
in japan that style of "spree" is called a eve never seen a US version.
does your have a battery? The Eve doesnt.. pretty kool bike there.
did you check your pipe? your exhaust and cylinder could be blocked.
Usually a load problem points to reeds, but you would have to go thru and check everything
aloha
D
Kick Start
Posted: Sun Oct 28, 2007 10:54 am
by HondaSky
Yes it has a battery.
So not being able to physically kick through is called a "load problem". Because before I changed the centrifugal clutch I was able to kick through fine. I do not believe I even touched the reed. However, if the reed being broken even stops me from kicking through then I have another problem on my hands.
Thanks for the Eve tip! I'm going to look that up. I'm still wondering though, about how I can know the kick start is installed right before I close it up, Should that "gear of interest" be moving at all?