The MotorScooter Diary

2006-05-04T21:52:00.000-07:00

After two seemingly long months of being either unemployed or underemployed at a part-time job making ends meet while searching for real employment, this week I started the best job I have ever had. It's 22 miles from my house, and as of yet I haven't ridden to work. But those days will be over soon. I just have to nail down the logistics of the route, and I'm there. This is where the scooter will really start paying for itself at a greatly-increased rate and I won't be nearly as frustrated at the end of the trip. The miles will really pile up as well, at a rate of over 250 miles per week, so we'll see just how well a Tank Urban Sporty 150 can handle it. Because my route in the car is about half freeway and half street, I can average about 40 miles per hour in the morning, but less than 20 miles per hour after work. My goal is to even that out at about 40-45 miles per hour both ways, even though there will be no freeway riding. Ever since I started watching the Ewan McGregor/Charlie Boorman video series called "The LongWay Round" I have been wanting to take on longer rides. Not 20,000 mile rides, but certainly more than four.

2006-04-17T00:38:00.000-07:00

I just thought I would add a little bit to my blog tonite. Yesterday we went to the Peterson Museum in Los Angeles. They have quite a collection of cars there, including couple of small motorcycle displays. In those displays are three very interesting scooters that I had never heard of. I posted the pictures and the descriptions on my links under Vintage Scooters. I think it's funny that after 45 years of development, the performance specifications of a Tank 150cc four-stroke scooter are basically the same now as the Heinkel was producing in 1960.

2006-03-31T17:58:00.000-08:00

I haven't posted to my blog for almost a month now, mostly because I've been trying to find a new job. Getting cut loose from the old job is what spurred me to find a new one. I have a probable job starting up in about a week or so, if everything works out. As a result of looking for a job, I have only ridden my scooter one day out of the last thirty days. That was yesterday. About two weeks ago, after two weeks of not riding, I started the scooter, and it fired up just fine, although the battery seemed a bit weak. Yesterday was a different story, because like a lot of scooters that sit for a month unridden, the battery was dead. I kick started it and all was well. Now it's back to normal. If the new job works out, I'll be riding to work once again. I am actually riding now to a part-time job that I took just to make ends (almost) meet.

2006-03-01T19:45:00.000-08:00

Here it is March 1, 2006. I'm going to go ahead and call it a landmark day. My scooter's six month warranty expired yesterday. I have never had it in to the shop for anything, nor have I had any issues that would have required warranty service. I haven't even replaced any parts under warranty. Of the issues I did have, none of them would have really been warranty issues anyway. Basically, here they are:

Hard starting because of a clogged idle jet which required removing the carburetor and blowing out the jets. This happened twice, once at about 300 miles, once last weekend at just over 1,700 miles. Total service time for each incident was about thirty minutes, total cost was nothing.
Loose bolts. Right after I bought the scooter, the two bolts holding the rear fender to the muffler came loose, and one fell off. A trip to Pep Boys fixed the issue. Total service time was about five minutes, total cost was about two dollars. A more serious bolt loss issue happened a few hundred miles ago when the bolts holding the rear brake caliper bracket to the engine came loose, and one was lost, causing the caliper bracket to detach from the motor. Because of the design, the bracket didn't rotate down to the pavement, but nevertheless I now check those bolts every day. Again, a trip to Pep Boys, two dollars, and five minutes of wrench time fixed the issue.
Low battery. One time, as a result of not riding the scooter for almost a week over the Thanksgiving holiday, the battery showed signs of being excessively discharged. After three days of riding, the battery finally charged back up to normal.

There have been a few other items of service that can only really be classified as maintenance, such as oil changes, air in the tires, spark plug changes, and headlight aiming, (although they were wrong to begin with and took some bending to get right). There are also some issues that cannot really be easily corrected and are simply annoyances. These include a somewhat inaccurate speedometer that reads about five miles per hour fast, a fuel gauge that reads full for almost half the tank and drops rapidly after that, and a balky, confusing remote start/alarm system that is essentially useless to me. Overall, I am happy with this scooter, especially considering how much I paid for it. I have come to rely on it almost daily for commuting to work, and I am always finding reasons to go for late-night joy rides. I average about 60-70 miles per gallon, and I put about 300-320 miles a month on it. I have almost 1,800 miles on it now. Every one of them was a blast.

2006-02-21T08:45:00.000-08:00

The weather's back to normal for winter in California. 40-45 degrees in the morning, mid 60s in the afternoon. We actually got rain last weekend, which meant snow in the mountains, which meant the kids got to go up there and build a snowman. My scooter's doing quite well. I'll have 1,700 miles on it by tomorrow. The only problems I have are the mirrors. Now neither one wants to stay in place. My warranty expires at the end of the month, and while the mirrors might be covered, I don't really want to replace them with the same ones if they're either not going to work or last only a few months before they get loose. I would rather get a decent pair that I like. I also got a tip over on scooter bbs for keeping my face shield clear in colder weather. Polish the inside of the shield with dish soap. It seems to work well, and it's cheap. After six months, I've finally discovered, in the form of music, the difference between traditional motorcycles and scooters. It seems that the theme song for traditional motorcycles is Steppenwolf's "Born To Be Wild". You know, "Get your motor runnin', head out on the highway, lookin' for adventure, or what ever comes our way...", while the theme song for scooters is the 5,6,7,8s "Woo Hoo" song. You've heard it if you watch the Vonage commercials or if you've seen Kill Bill.

2006-02-08T12:44:00.000-08:00

It's February, and it's supposed to be winter. But it's 84 degrees. Yet another rationalization for my scooter. Because I am getting close to 70 miles per gallon, I feel I am doing my part, and more, to reverse global warming. Don't get me wrong, 84 degrees in February is perfect for scootering, so I don't want to go to an extreme and personally trigger another ice age. I'm at about 1,600 miles now, averaging about 320 miles each month, and I don't really have anything to report outside the status quo on the Tank. I trust it to the point where I am relying on it almost completely to get to work and back. It's nice to have a car for backup, but really, once I'm on the way to work on the scooter, if it breaks I'm late or absent, and that has not happened yet. It's starting every morning, it's running very well, and it's holding together nicely. What more could I ask for? I'm going to try a synthetic next time I change the oil, because some folks I checked with who are "in the know" over on scooter bbs give it a thumbs-up.

2006-01-27T14:20:00.000-08:00

Just a post to give readers a heads-up. Please watch your tire pressure. Yesterday I pulled out of the parking lot at lunch. Everything was fine until I turned left a block down the street. Then my scooter got all squirrely in the back and didn't want to handle worth a wood nickel. Turns out that the rear tire was low, but not obviously low, when I left work, but went completely flat when I went around the corner. I walked it back to work, where we have a compressor, and pumped it back up. We checked for nails, screws, holes, and other damage, and found none. Since then, it has stayed inflated. The cheap rubber valve stems appear to be somewhat deteriorated, so no doubt they probably leak a little, but the thing is, I eyeball the tires every ride to make sure they're not obviously flat or low, and I check the pressure every so often. That's not enough. The problem seems to be that if the tires, especially the rear, are not fully-inflated, going around a corner at just the right angle and speed, or hitting a bump in the corner can unseat the bead and dump the remaining air. Use a good dial guage, because those pen-style guages are grossly inaccurate, and even a brand-new one I got right off our shelf wouldn't even register until the tire was over 20 pounds. Gas station guages are no better. The next upgrade on my Tank is to metal valve stems.

2006-01-25T14:31:00.000-08:00

Here we are at almost the end of January. Not much to report on the 2005 Tank Urban Sporty 150. About the only annoyances are the mirrors, which don’t want to stay put. I always end up looking at myself. My rear brake caliper bolts are staying tight, and I check them every day now. I changed the oil the other night, and except for being a little dirty, it was fine. No metal shavings, nothing unusual. I did find out as well that if you use a drain pan with a hole in it, a quart of oil will flow into a roughly circular pattern approximately three feet in diameter and it can be absorbed using two decent car wash towels. My Tank will turn over 1,500 miles in the next few days. That means I average 300 miles a month. If I use sixty-five miles per gallon as a conservative figure, I burn about five gallons of fuel each month, compared to fifteen or twenty with my Neon. In dollar terms, that works out to a savings of about forty to fifty dollars each month, not counting the reduced wear and tear on the car. At that rate, my scooter will have paid for itself in just reduced fuel cost in about two years. Not bad, since I also get 300 miles worth of entertainment every month as well that a Neon just can’t provide.

2006-01-16T00:20:00.000-08:00

I posted a few photos of my scooter under the Scooter Pictures link. Felix's Friend, guess which one is for you. I'm not as photogenic as some people, but there you are. My parents gave me that sweatshirt for Christmas probably ten or fifteen years ago because of how much I used to love to run home from school to watch Felix The Cat. In other news, today I indulged myself at Lowe's and bought a set of socket wrenches. I'm gradually replacing my stolen tools, this time with decent matched sets that will from now on be stored in the house and used by no one but me. Now I can resume at least some semblance of maintenance work on the scooter.

2006-01-13T00:38:00.000-08:00

On the way home from work today, I began hearing a vibration from the right side of my scooter. It appeared to be coming from the muffler area, and I thought it was another loose fender bolt. I quickly checked at the next signal I came to, and the fender bolts that I could see seemed secure. The noise got louder, so I pulled into a lighted parking lot and discovered that there was another bolt about to fall out, this one attaching the muffler brackets to the motor. What I didn't notice at the time is that there are two of these bolts, and one had already fallen out, gone forever. I tightened the remaining one by hand, and rode toward home with somewhat less vibration. At a red light about a block from home, I heard that one fall out as well. I picked it up, and when I got home, I looked at the situation and found that the bolts served to hold both the main muffler brackets and the rear brake caliper bracket to the engine. Somewhere along the line, those two bolts had worked their way loose and fallen out. Two things happen when those bolts fall out. First, and most important, the caliper bracket is no longer attached to the engine, and applying the rear brake will cause the bracket to rotate down toward the pavement. On my scooter, what stopped it from doing that was the oil filler neck. Second, the muffler brackets bear the weight of the muffler. Without the bolts in place, that weight is leveraged onto the flange and the two fasteners holding the exhaust pipe to the cylinder head. Everything's OK now, except that I have to find a replacement for the lost bolt. In response to this, I will be checking these critical bolts daily and using Loc-Tite and lock washers wherever I can. The root cause of this is that small one-cylinder engines vibrate like fifty-cent beds, and any bolt that is attached to the engine is almost guaranteed to come loose. I've linked through Photobucket on my home page to a couple of photos I took so you can see the bolts and brackets I'm talking about.

2006-01-11T13:31:00.000-08:00

Another milestone, at least if I lived in a metric country. 2,000 kilometers, which equals 1,240 miles. And, as has become normal for my scooter, no problems. I read over on Scooter BBS that Cycle World Magazine tested a number of economy motorcycles and two scooters in their February 2006 issue. One was a Tank identical to mine, the other was a Vespa. I immediately bought it. While they didn't exactly rave about the Tank, they found no real problems with it. One thing they did like was the price. Sadly, they couldn't get a zero-to-sixty time on it, because, well, it wouldn't go sixty. I'm just happy to see scooters getting somewhat favorable press in mainstream magazines. I'm going to post a few pictures of me and my scooter this weekend, and Felix's Friend, I'll have a special one just for you. Stay tuned.

2006-01-04T21:54:00.000-08:00

I decided today would be a good day to change the oil on my scooter. I stopped at Pep Boys on the way home from work to pick up a quart of oil. I figured that when I got home, the oil would be hot and well-agitated. I have my own garage, and my wife shares a garage with a neighbor. In to my garage and up on the stand went my scooter, and down to my wife's garage I went to get my tool box. Surprise. Sometime over the last three days, my tool box containing all of my hand tools, with which for over 20 years I have collected and done every bit of mechanical work on every vehicle I have ever had, was stolen. For the life of us we can't figure out how, except for the most likely possibility that the thieves snuck in to the garage while the door was coming down as we drove away one night, waited for us to leave, and used the manual release on the door to get out. There was no sign of forced entry or damage to anything else in the garage, nor was there anything else missing. The only tools I have left are a pair of needlenose pliers, a circular saw, an adjustable wrench, and the pathetic tool set that came with my scooter, none of which are any good for changing the oil. The good news is that from now on every tool I get will be part of a matched set. I guess I'll change the oil tomorrow.

2005-12-25T22:53:00.000-08:00

Here it is late Christmas day. Almost a new year. I got a digital camera with a Christmas bonus from work, so I can post a few pictures of my scooter, maybe even one of me as well. Every day that I ride, I find out more and more that at least in my case an inexpensive Chinese scooter is turning out to be a good purchase, in spite of the bad press that some of them have received. I started this blog to document all the good and bad experiences with the scooter, but nothing's going wrong. I feel I can count on this machine to get me to where I need to be as inexpensively as possible, with a little (big!) bit of fun thrown in. I've gotten used to all the sensations that riding motorized on two wheels comes with, and I always look forward to my rides to and from work as much or more than I did when I first got the scooter. I am going to take my riding test at the DMV in February so I can get out from under the permit. I'll make sure I let you all know how it goes!

2005-12-14T18:09:00.000-08:00

It's official. I have completed my first 1,000 miles. No major problems. The early morning temperature for the past two or three weeks has been consistently dropping into the low 40s, and the bike's been starting every time. A couple of minutes into my ride, sometimes there's a slight stumble just off idle, but it only happens once and goes away almost right away. I let a little pressure out of the front tire, down to about 32 pounds psi, which took the edge off the harsh ride a little. With the tires properly inflated, I did notice much less rolling resistance, and better mileage. I also adopted the habit of riding with the high beams on during the day. I have noticed that this reduces the number of times people seem surprised to see me. I don't use them at night, because the beam doesn't light up the ground in front of me. The headlights are lame enough already. I thought about upgrading them to higher wattage bulbs, but after my experience with the battery discharging over five days and taking three days of riding to charge back up, I don't know if it's worth overtaxing the electrical system. One thing I think this scooter could use is some kind of clock, and I'm going to figure out a slick way to mount one that looks factory. If it works, I'll post a picture and details. If I were a Tank designer, I would have put it where the tachometer is and got rid of the tach, the alarm, and the remote start. So far, this scooter is living up to what I expected, and has given me no reason to regret buying it.

2005-12-08T22:52:00.000-08:00

Well, at the time of this writing I am 22 miles shy of 1,000 miles with no major problems. I would not go so far as to say that I won't have any, but my thought is that if anything major were to go wrong that was the result of some kind of engineering or design flaw, manufacturing defect, or just plain poor workmanship, it probably would have shown up well before now. I tend to believe that scooter miles are like dog years, because I cannot imagine my scooter lasting for 100,000 miles like I expect my cars to. Frankly, I'm not sure my butt could withstand that many miles on such a device, especially since at my current rate it would take over 25 years to accumulate that many miles. Yesterday at work I checked the tire pressure. It was quite low, because, well, I just never checked it. I pumped them up to the recommended 36 pounds psi, and two things happened. First, it rolls much easier. Second, it rides like a buckboard. While I'm sure the substantially-reduced rolling resistance will help the fuel economy, I'm thinking there may be a compromise between ride quality and fuel consumption that airing down the tires may help me achieve.

2005-11-30T18:12:00.000-08:00

Monday I had reported a hard start problem with my Tank. I'm pretty much convinced that it had to do with two things. First, it wasn't ridden for five days, so the battery was quite low. It was rather chilly, about 43 degrees, so battery efficiency was further reduced. I've also heard that the stock battery leaves a bit to be desired. Second, when I tried to start the scooter, I turned the key and immediately pressed the start button. I found out later over on scooter bbs that it is advisable to turn the key and put the kill switch in the run position and let it sit for about fifteen seconds. This allows the automatic choke to activate fully. Otherwise, the engine may flood before it starts, making it harder to start. After three days of riding, the battery is back to normal and I have had no further problems starting it.

2005-11-28T08:18:00.000-08:00

Well, this morning the temperature was hovering in the low 40s. Not as cold as some of you are used to, but pretty chilly here in Southern California. My gloves and heaviest jacket did the trick. For some reason my scooter didn't want to start. Unusual, because it always starts quickly with one push of the starter button. I have a feeling it was for a couple of reasons. First, because of the long weekend, my Tank sat from Tuesday night until Sunday afternoon without being started. I started it Sunday afternoon and rode about six miles. The battery seemed a little weak, and didn't crank the engine as fast as it normally does if I ride every day. Then, this morning, probably because of the cold and a slightly low battery charge, it would crank but not fire. After three multi-second cranking attempts, it started and ran fine. I'll have to see if it does it again before I get too worried about it. I've heard that scooter CDI ignitions are somewhat susceptible to cold and low voltage, so I guess I'll have to ride every day to keep the volts and amps up where they belong. "Honey, I need to ride for a couple of hours. It's not for my enjoyment, though. It's for the good of the scooter." Not to change the subject, but we went to Avalon on Catalina Island the Saturday before last. We saw quite a few scooters over there, ranging from old beat-up Derbi mopeds to Yamaha Zumas. Even the police use 50cc Yamaha scooters to patrol the city. I guess you can do that when there's no crime that would require a pursuit. There's also a few Cushman three-wheel carts. Interesting town. I never get tired of it.

2005-11-15T12:31:00.000-08:00

Well, I'm creeping up on 1,000 miles. I'm at 750. Another month and I'll be there. Sooner if I take a lot of joy rides. With Thanksgiving coming up, there will be some free time to fill with riding. Today is quite windy. Great when I'm going west, but when I'm going east, I'm getting tossed around quite a bit. I'm always amazed at how much the wind plays with the scooter. The mirrors, especially the left one, tend to blow in a little. The swivels are not tight enough, so even the vibration of the motor tends to throw them off. If I can't tighten them, I'm thinking of replacing them with upgrades. It's one of the very few problems I've had with this scooter, and one that seems easy to fix. I had a Ford Ranger that did the same thing, but the mirrors would blow completely in. I'm going to upgrade the headlight bulbs to a higher wattage as well. On two occasions this week people have pulled out in front of me because I swear to God they looked right through me as if I wasn't there. One of them was 15 feet away and looking right at me. I just need to make sure I don't go too high with the wattage and drain the battery. From what I've heard, there is a 35 watt replacement available that will work. Since daylight savings time ended, my afternoon commute is in the dark and I can use more light. In the meantime, I think I'll ride with the high beams on during the day, but the problem with that at night is that the high beams don't light up the road in front of me. Other than that, it's about time to change the engine oil again, and maybe the gear oil this time. As soon as I do the gear oil, I'll post the procedure I use.

2005-11-08T08:57:00.000-08:00

Every so often I am reminded by motorists that a small scooter is hard to see. Yesterday at lunchtime, I was buzzing along Orangethorpe Avenue, and at the last second a guy in the left turn lane next to mine decided to pull into my lane so he could go straight. Remember in Top Gun when Maverick and Goose encountered the Mig and got inverted above it? Like them, I "communicated" with the driver. He waved an apology to me, and that was that. I have developed some habits that I think help me stay safe. First, I always ride in the left side of my lane so I am in the left mirror of the car ahead of me. This also keeps me farther away from parked car doors that open unexpectedly and people who make right turns into my path. Second, I tend to close up on the car in front of me when I go through an intersection with an uncontrolled left turn lane, because a few times there have been people who have not seen me and started to turn in front of me, but thankfully stopped. I figure if I am close enough to the car in front of me, they'll be waiting for that car to pass and I'll have a better chance of being seen, and there's less time for them to get a jump on their turn. Basically, I don't want to go through such an intersection alone. Third, I always assume that people are going to do dumb things, break rules, and ignore lines on the street. I drive and ride in such a way that when they do, I'm not in their path. I have avoided numerous accidents by adhering to that one rule, and I have seen lots of wrecks and close calls. Be careful out there. We are small and invisible.

2005-11-06T19:51:00.000-08:00

My Tank went through another week without incident and is fueled and ready for another. I filled the tank, as well as two one-gallon cans I keep in the garage. That should last me for almost two weeks. I thoroughly enjoy riding my scooter, and it has become second-nature. It went over 1,000 km last Thursday, a milestone in metric countries, but for me the real first milestone will be at about 1613 kilometers, or 1,000 miles. Because the life expectancy of a scooter, especially a $1,300 scooter, is probably more like dog years than car years, I don't expect even close to the 100,000-200,000 miles out of my scooter that I have routinely got from all my cars. So, 1,000 miles in the life of a Tank scooter might be more like 10,000 to a car. I don't know, because counting my Tank, I have owned one scooter. This owning a scooter business is a learning experience for both you and me. I have read many mixed reviews concerning Tank scooters, and the lack of information, credible or otherwise, is one big reason, if not the biggest, that I started this blog. I feel that there is no better barometer of performance and reliability than actual long-term user experience. On a much higher and more sophisticated level, this is exactly how publications such as Consumer Reports and other major magazines test and evaluate some cars. I have been very frank with the results I have obtained with my scooter, and to date I have had no catastrophic problems that have rendered my scooter inoperable or worthy of a trip to the dealer for service. It has started every morning, every lunch time, and every afternoon, although reluctantly for a day, and has required a little fine tuning to be 100%. Because I have reported overwhelming good experience with my Tank, while at the same time reporting problems and issues as they occur, it has been suggested on Scooter BBS, a website that I have purposely and actively linked both to and from, that I have misrepresented my Tank by implying that I have had overall good luck with it. In reality, that is exactly what has happened. Good experience, few problems, none serious. To all those who visit my blog, and by the looks of it, over 500 people have, thank you for your visits and your input. To those who are visiting for the first time, thanks for your interest. There are a lot of blogs out there. The information I put here is factual and frank. I have nothing to gain or lose by misrepresenting my scooter. If it runs for 10,000 miles without a problem, you will know. If it breaks, I will fix it. If I can't, I will have it fixed. Either way, you will know that, too. I am enjoying sharing with others how my scooter performs. I have learned from other riders, and I hope they have learned at least a little something from me.

2005-10-31T18:31:00.000-08:00

Well, not much to report. At 589 miles, the Tank is running well, and there are really no issues to write about. Except for the pit bull. I went to Fedex after work to pick up a package. It was almost dark, and this guy was sitting on the curb by the train tracks about ten feet away from me with a dog. Just as I went by, the dog came after me and would have had me, except that it got about four feet and the guy yanked the leash and clotheslined the raging beast. If I wasn't on my scooter, it would have been pure comedy. Just one more thing to watch for. Other drivers are at least predictable in their unpredictability, if that makes any sense. But as yet I have not seen other drivers hide in the shadows with evil intent, urban guerrillas waiting to pounce.

2005-10-24T21:00:00.000-07:00

APPOINT ESPECIALLY OIL
Four stroke, especially oil:SAE10W-30

NOTICE
1. There have a lot of dummy oil and make a mistake for using to happen trouble.
2. In order to assure your vehicle safety, please safely drive it per as stated and requirement.

REPLACING OIL
Replace the oil first driving in 300km and replace it every 1000 later. Check the capacity of oil every 500km and in time add up the oil to standard lever. The total of capacity :0.9L, and normal is 0.75L.

NOTICE: PLEASE REPLACE USUALLY OIL AND KEEP THE USAGE TOO LONG.

So reads, word for word, the Chinese-to-English translation concerning changing the oil on the Tank Urban Sporty 150. Well, like I do with other things, I procrastinated on the break-in oil change by a couple of hundred kilometers. Well, ok, 500 kilometers. So, I figured I better do it. At Pep Boys, I found the correct oil. I selected Quaker State. No reason except it's a brand name and I probably saw it on the Speed Channel. I put the scooter on the center stand, started it up, and let it idle for a couple of minutes to get the oil stirred up. I was always taught to do this so the impurities are suspended in the oil and get drained out instead of sitting in the pan. Because deep down I'm cheap, I cut a gallon milk carton down to size and left the handle intact to use as a drain pan. Godzilla must have installed the drain plug, but I got it out. Watch your knuckles on that one, people. After it drained, I set the scooter down on its kickstand, which puts the motor at an angle and allows a little more oil to drain out. My oil was murky brown, and smelled a bit like engine exhaust, but had no visible bits of metal or dirt in it. When an engine runs, a small amount of exhaust and unburned fuel gets by the piston and rings. The more worn out an engine, the more gets by. These are called blowby gases. They thin out and pollute motor oil, resulting in contaminated oil which contains chemicals that can cause sludge and varnish buildup inside the engine, and which is too thin to protect moving parts. An emission control system, called a Positive Crankcase Ventilation (PVC) system on modern vehicles, draws these gases out of the crankcase and back through the intake system to be burned. This helps in two ways. First, it pulls these harmful gases out of the crankcase so they don't pollute the oil as much. Second, unburned fuel and other chemicals are key components of smog, so by capturing and burning them instead of venting them to the atmosphere, we don't have to breath them. Enough internal combustion engine theory. Using my long thin funnel, I put in enough oil, a little less than a quart, to fill the crankcase up to the "Upper limit" as prescribed on page 22 of my TK150T-9 MOTORCYCLE DESCRIPTION BOOK. A quick test ride around the block, no leaks, and that's that. The test ride would have been longer, but sadly it was starting to mist heavily for the third time today. The first two times I got to ride in it, on the way back from lunch, and on the way home from work. I think I'm going to put some Rain-X and anti-fog on my face shield.

2005-10-20T18:28:00.000-07:00

Well, almost another week, almost another gallon. No problems. By tomorrow at this time, my Tank will have 500 miles on it. This blog was intended to be a stage on to which I would roll out both the good and the bad about my Tank for all to see. I have had almost all good to say, and the problems I have had are very minor, not engineering-related, and have never caused my scooter to be inoperative. What I have found after reading responses to my blogs and those over on http://www.scooterbbs.com/ is that the people who seem to have the most problems with Chinese scooters are the ones who have scooters that never went through a dealer's quality control or dealer prep. Once they get the scooters going, the owners seem happy with them. It's almost a given that there will be problems that the buyer has to deal with if the scooter comes partially assembled from the factory. If it were not for the fact that I happened to see an ad for Family Motor Sports in the Cycle Trader, I would have bought one online as well. There is no shortage of online sources, and in fact the one I did contact said he had no Tanks available. As time goes by, it has become second nature to ride. At first, I was kind of apprehensive. So many new sensations come with riding a scooter. I didn't feel nearly as protected, the street seemed to rush at me much faster than when I'm in a car, the wind wanted to drag me off the seat, other cars seemed so threatening. I had read so many things about close calls, tragic accidents, and hostile drivers. Now, after several weeks of riding every day, I have become very comfortable. I have learned to simply stay away from other cars, ride in the portion of the lane that presents the fewest hazards, avoid obstacles and cracks in the street, and generally relax while riding. As a result, I have had no close calls or accidents, and I haven't encountered anyone who has been openly hostile. What I have seen in that regard is the same stunts that people pull every day in cars, simply because they are impatient, showing off, or basically not very good at driving. I just have much more of a reason to avoid them now. It's actually a relief because I know when I'm on my scooter that I have no reason to be aggressive with other cars, so I tend to focus on how to stay out of harm's way rather than find myself in the middle of it because I'm not paying attention.

2005-10-17T12:58:00.000-07:00

Dangit. It's raining. It started last night with thunderstorms all night, and sort of cleared up this morning. I rode to work, but after I got home for lunch, another thunderstorm rolled in and it's been raining on and off ever since. When I bought this scooter, part of the deal was that I promised my wife I wouldn't ride in the rain if I didn't have to. So it's back in the car. At least I got one good ride in today. Nothing really to report on the Tank. It just keeps running. Fuel mileage seems pretty good. I gave up on trying to figure my exact mileage, opting instead to figure about how much gas I use a week. It varies from a gallon to a gallon and a half a week. Between my Tank, my Neon, which gets anywhere from 23-30, and our Odyssey, which gets anywhere from 15 to 26, our family fuel efficiency is somewhere around 35-40 mpg.

2005-10-12T08:05:00.000-07:00

Well, last night I ripped into my Tank to solve the rough idle problem. Two bolts, two nuts and a screw hold the seat/storage area in. Take these off and the assembly lifts out to give one tons of room to work. I put in a new NGK spark plug, checked the air filter and fuel filter, which were both in perfect shape, and tried to start it. Check the easy stuff first, right? Same thing. Hard start, rough idle. No improvement. So, I pulled off the carburetor, which by the way, contrary to the "cheap Chinese-made scooter" school of thought, is a Japanese unit. Simple operation, really. Two nuts hold it to the cylinder head. I disconnected the fuel line, the air intake, the intake manifold, a vacuum hose, an electrical connector, and the fuel drain hose. If I wanted to take the carburetor out completely, I could have disconnected the throttle cable, but I was able to do what I needed without doing that. I took off the float bowl, dumped the fuel, blew through the idle port, unscrewed the main jet and blew it out, and put it all back together. Success. It runs like the day I bought it. The Tank is easy to work on, and simple enough to diagnose at home. My goal is to fix any minor issues without having to take it to the dealer, which is almost 20 miles away. So far, the only issues, mis-aimed headlights, a clogged idle jet and a missing fender bolt, have nothing to do with the engineering or quality of the scooter. Any scooter can suck in some dirt, and if whoever assembled the bike doesn't pay close attention, any headlight can be aimed wrong, and any bolt can be forgotten or fall off. Basically, when the consumer takes delivery of one of these scooters, they must assume some of the task of dealer prep, more so if it's purchased on-line and delivered only partially assembled. Overall, I'm very happy with this scooter so far.

2005-10-11T15:14:00.000-07:00

The Tank's developed a little problem. At 375 miles, it doesn't want to start up nearly as easily as it did. Up until Monday morning, one quick press of the starter button and it was running. Now all of the sudden, it takes a few multisecond tries. It idles bad, and stalls. I have adjusted the throttle to increase the idle speed, but to no avail. It runs a little better when it warms up, but a far cry from when it was new six weeks ago. Running at speed it still runs great. Plenty of power, really smooth. Same or better than new, in fact. From the research I've done, the original equipment spark plug isn't the best, even though I checked it and it looks good, and there may be an obstruction in the carb idle port or fuel filter. I'm also going to check the air filter. Some upgrades are in order. An NGK spark plug, possibly a better air filter element, and a more substantial fuel filter are all things that have been suggested. I am pretty much convinced that it's a smackeral of dirt in the carb that's causing it to run rough. There are such tiny passages in there and the air intake is so close to the ground that it wouldn't take much to ingest something into the system. Simple enough to check. I was out last night for over an hour joy riding all over Fullerton. I keep looking for reasons to ride this scooter. If I can't find one, I generally make one up.

2005-10-10T20:03:00.000-07:00

Just a non-scooter-related post for Larry. Here's the picture that was on the front page of the Orange County Register. Observe the phenomonon of the many people scattering. I'm on the ground in the red Hawiian shirt, my wife is under the Easy Up. I keep my ticket for that flight as a reminder. Apparently there was a strap holding the rudder that someone forgot to remove. The plane continues for another 15 seconds, missing the tower by about 50 feet, and cartwheels into the street, hitting one moving car, and damaging several others in a repair shop about 100 yards from where we stood. Here's the NTSB report. http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief.asp?ev_id=20040929X01529&key=1

2005-10-10T09:36:00.000-07:00

This morning was a little chilly, so I broke out my flight jacket. One of those reversable ones with the neon orange lining. I bought it years ago so just in case I ever get shot down I can be seen from the air. HA! Not really, I just like the style. A little side note: The first (and now the last) time I was going to fly on anything smaller than a commercial jet was last year at the Fullerton Airport open house. The plane I was going to fly on, a replica Ford Trimotor, crashed and burned right in front of us on a test flight five minutes before I and nine others were to board. It veered off the runway straight at us and by the grace of God it lifted off the ground and missed us, as well as hundreds of people and dozens of parked airplanes before it crashed into several cars. No one died, but the copilot is now a paraplegic. Anyway, back to the scooter. Like I said, it was a little chilly this morning, and the Tank stalled a couple of times. It seems like the idle speed was too low, because it ran fine at speed and just off idle. We'll see how it does at lunch, then if I have to, I'll kick the idle speed up a bit.

2005-10-06T23:14:00.000-07:00

Not much to report today, except that I've gone almost five days on less than one gallon of fuel and the Tank just keeps on going day after day. I keep two one-gallon fuel cans at home, that way I don't have to fight with the gas pumps that seem to have only two flow rates: "Off", and "let's try to put an entire gallon into the tank in two seconds". It's strange getting two gallons of gas every two weeks when before I was going through ten to twelve gallons a week. Ever since a few days ago when I made a few dumb mistakes and decided to be more careful, I feel like my riding is improving, and I feel more confident being on the road. I seem to be seeing more scooters on the road, too. Yesterday I saw a girl on some kind of retro-looking scooter, and today I saw a guy on a Honda Elite. Man, those Hondas are tiny. I was looking at my scooter tonight, and it hit me that the collection of stickers that Tank put on the fairing and the forks were pretty lame. "Vacuum Fire". "Super Motor". What the heck? Off they came. The only stickers left are the two on the sides that actually say "Tank Urban Sporty".

2005-10-05T08:44:00.000-07:00

Like a lot of Southern California scooterists, this morning I rode into a pretty stiff headwind. In the fall, we get what's called the Santa Ana winds. They blow warm and dry from out of the desert, and we end up with brush fires, downed trees, overturned trucks, and assorted other wind damage. You've probably seen us on the news in the last week or two. It tends to buffet a lightweight scooter around a little bit. Nothing major, but if you are perpendicular to the wind, you can really feel it pushing you off your line. Your head tends to get pushed around too because of the helmet. A friend of mine just told me that if you ride a couple of hundred miles into a headwind like that, your neck tends to get pretty stiff. Well, I promised here to give everyone the good and the bad about my Tank. So here it is. The absolute worst thing that has happened so far. There's a plastic fender over the back wheel. One of the bolts holding it on fell off sometime over the last 240 miles, or maybe it was never there in the first place and I just didn't notice. That's it. I'll pick one up at Pep Boys. This thing just keeps humming along. Three days and 40 miles into a tank of gas and I still have half a gallon left.

2005-10-03T23:58:00.000-07:00

I have yet to take a picture of my own scooter, but after an intensive ten minute internet search I was able to locate and post in my profile a picture of a Tank Urban Sporty 150 that looks exactly like mine, same color and everything. I got my pink slip in the mail today, so it's all official. Registration, license plate, pink slip, and insurance are all in place. I have seen so much on the web, especially over on http://www.scooterbbs.com/, about delivery and registration problems with mail-order scooters that I would strongly recommend that anyone buying a scooter, if you can, buy it from a dealer that has your scooter in stock and is registered with the DMV and can take care of all the registration. Mine was a breeze. The only thing that remains is for me to take my riding test at the DMV. I have eleven more months to do it. Knowing me, I'll put it off for ten months and twenty-eight days. It's probably best to get a lot more experience before I try it, because as a rookie I make mistakes from time to time. Today, I made three. First, while riding through a congested 7/11 parking lot, I found myself coming too close for comfort to a pickup truck. He didn't see me, and I didn't see him. Just one of those things I have to take the initiative on and watch closer for so I don't get hurt. Second, on the way home, I hit a slightly depressed manhole cover that was about an inch below pavement level because the street is in the process of being resurfaced. No harm done, but it did send a shock through the bike and me, and if it were deeper I could have gotten tripped up or blown a tire. Third, I found myself in the left hand lane in heavy traffic where I had to turn right, with no way to get over, so I ended up passing my street and doubling back. That was just a dumb one, but all three mistakes were caused by me not looking and planning far enough ahead. There are a lot of cool things about riding a scooter, and one of the coolest is that I bought two gallons of fuel yesterday that will get me to work for two weeks. In other news, while I have seen several motorcyclists on the road, one of which actually acknowleged me, I saw another real live scooter for the first time today, much like mine only blue. We passed on opposite sides of a four lane street in traffic, but we both realized at the same moment that we were both on scooters, and we managed to exchange at least quick over the shoulder eye contact. My scooter now has close to 300 miles on it, and contrary to what the skeptics may say or believe, this Chinese scooter is performing very well with no problems so far. I hope to keep saying that as the miles add on. I have a short fuse when it comes to mechanical problems, so rest assured that if anything goes wrong with this scooter, it will be documented here.

2005-09-29T23:06:00.000-07:00

With the help of Felix's Friend, I got to the headlights. There's one big Phillips head screw under the headlights, and two on the upper left and right corners of the dash. Remove these three screws, and the center portion of the cowling will, with a little mojo, slide down and pop off. Just like she said. The headlights are mounted to this piece. On my scooter, the little visor-looking mini fender on the front of the cowling is somehow permanently attached rather than screwed on, which makes the cowl a little harder to get back on, but once you get it lined up right, a little persuading gets it back on. There's an adjusting screw for the headlights behind a hole in the cowl which controls up and down movement, but no left and right adjustment. The problem with mine is that the screw was adjusted all the way down, but there was no more adjustment left. So, I took the headlight frame out of the cowling and carefully bent the frame and tabs enough to gain enough adjustment to get the lights down on the road and centered better. It's a huge improvement at night. All that light is now on the street where it belongs instead of up in the trees. It's also a given that drivers will appreciate it when I'm in their left door mirror. FF, thanks for your help. I knew there had to be an easier (read correct) way!

2005-09-29T17:29:00.000-07:00

On the way home today, I got a surprise. I was sitting in the left hand side of the left hand lane at a red light. A guy on a white Honda Gold Wing pulled up next to me. At first I thought it was a cop. HE addressed ME! He said "How ya doin?" I said How YOU doin?" He allowed ME to lead. We rode in proper staggered formation for the next half mile until he turned. So much for the big bikers giving the scooters no respect. He looked a bit amused at the size of my scooter, what with the Gold Wing being probably the biggest bike Honda makes, but hey, they usually don't give me the time of day. Anyway, I thought it was pretty cool and it must have looked pretty neat to other people.

2005-09-29T09:14:00.000-07:00

I tried last night to get to the headlights on my scooter, since they are aimed wrong and I may eventually need to replace burned-out bulbs. There must be a trick to it, but I don't know what it is. They seem to be totally inaccessible and the cowling seems very difficult to remove. It seems to me that an awful lot of the cowling, dash, and floorboard must be removed to get to them. I hope that's not the case, but if it is, I need to sort of document a procedure so that at least when they burn out I can replace them. This headlight issue has turned out to be the only problem so far with this bike, and I'm just bullheaded enough to figure it out. I'm at just over 200 miles, and the bike is performing flawlessly. It fires up quickly every morning, and runs perfectly. In about two weeks I'll change the break-in oil and see how it looks.

2005-09-26T14:22:00.000-07:00

I decided to live dangerously and and see how far I could go on exactly one gallon of gas. It looked almost empty at 65 miles, so I chickened out and filled up. I could only put three quarters of a gallon in, so I figure my mileage is close to 70 or more miles per gallon. It's a little hard to figure accurately like it is on a car that holds fifteen gallons. My gas gauge isn't very accurate, since it reads empty when there's still a between an eighth and a quarter of a tank, but no big deal. The only other problem I've discovered on this scooter is that the headlights are aimed wrong. I noticed this when I was riding last night down a dark street. The low beams are somewhat high, but the high beams are ten feet up in the trees on the right side fifty feet ahead. Great if you're a birdwatcher, but I'll have to get into the cowling and adjust them for night riding. At 252 km (157 mi), this scooter is turning out to be a blast.

2005-09-23T16:15:00.000-07:00

A few years ago I read a book called "The Tao of Pooh". I have realized that when I ride my scooter, because I am not isolated within the protective cocoon of my car, I have become part of traffic, in a way that the driver of a car can never be. While I don't feel vulnerable in a way that makes me ride scared, I ride in such a way that embraces some of the tenets of Tao. Some of these are humbleness, broad-mindedness, forgiveness, and unegoistness, if I may adapt a word. While these tenets are not exclusively Tao, the way they are used in Tao is designed to allow one to pass through life with good productivity and little resistance. One cannot challenge cars, because one will lose. One cannot challenge the road surface, or one will be one with it. One cannot harbor anger toward other motorists, because anger causes one to make poor (read "dangerous") decisions, and one must always remember that one is riding on a 300 pound scooter and not in a 3,000 pound car. A scooterist must flow through and with traffic and over the road surface in such a way as to guarantee that he or she will be able to take the next ride. The Tao of Pooh makes an excellent comparison between water flowing over, under, and around boulders in a riverbed and people who embrace these tenets as they go through life. The water always gets where it's going by being, well, fluid, rather than trying to move the boulders.

2005-09-22T10:54:00.000-07:00

I wasn't sure of the calibration of the odometer on my Tank, so I checked this morning. My Tank Sporty odometer, I have discovered, officially reads in kilometers. The manual doesn't say, so I had to test it myself. I clocked the exact distance to work in my car, which is 4 miles. The scooter odometer showed 6.5 of what I thought were miles, but an online metric-to-standard calculator confirms that 6.5 kilometers is 4.04 miles. So, not only have I confirmed that it reads in kilometers, it also appears to be very accurate. Last night, in order to confirm the fuel capacity, I ran it dry in the driveway. I was able to put in exactly one gallon. That pretty much corresponds to the only readable part of the largely unreadable English translation of the manual, which says it holds 4 liters. Now I can get a better bead on my fuel mileage. Or kilometerage. Next I'm going to confirm the speedometer reading.

2005-09-20T13:57:00.000-07:00

Wouldn't you know it. The day I ride to work for the first time is great. No problems at all. My Tank 150 performed like a thoroughbred. Within two hours after I got home, the first storm of the season rolled in about two months early to Southern California, complete with thunder, lightning, and heavy rain. Not just a little cloudburst, either. It's been nothing but lightning, thunder, and rain for the last 19 hours straight. Apparently last night some guy in Santa Ana, a mere ten miles from me, was so close to a lightning strike that he was taken to the hospital. My Tank is fast, but not THAT fast! Needless to say, I didn't take the chance of riding, so I was forced back into the car for a day. We need the rain badly, so I won't complain.

2005-09-17T15:33:00.000-07:00

So anyway, the California DMV is open the third Saturday of every month from 8 to noon for the convenience of people like me who work Monday through Friday. I got there this morning at 6:10 to be the first in line. I was actually the second of an eventual 50-60 people that arrived between then and the time they opened. Thanks to the new-found efficiency of the men and women behind the counter, I was out the door with my learners permit 30 minutes and $25 later. I had to take one side of a written Class-C exam, as well as both sides of a written motorcycle exam. My best advice for anyone taking the written motorcycle test is to study that motorcycle handbook over and over, especially on the day you take the test, read the questions very carefully, and review the standard Class-C handbook. I missed two easy motorcycle questions, one because I read it wrong, the other because I didn't think about it logically. Cutting to the chase, I will commence riding to work every day starting this Monday. I can't wait.

2005-09-11T22:22:00.000-07:00

September 11, 2005

I thought I was close to being out of fuel, as the gauge was at zero. The tank was almost full when I got the bike, which I verified visually by taking the cap off. At an indicated 60 miles on the odometer, the gauge read empty. So, I rode to ARCO, gave the attendant four dollars, and carefully pumped gas into the tank. Two things: First, it turns out that there's a certain talent involved in getting the fuel in the tank without splashing it back out, a talent which I am sure I will eventually develop. Second, I was only able to put slightly more than a half gallon of fuel into the tank, which, according to the manual, holds four liters. While this is encouraging, since it would indicate that I am getting twice the miles per gallon I thought, somewhere around 100, it means that the fuel gauge is grossly inaccurate, but thankfully in my favor. I would have been a bit perturbed if it showed a half a tank and then ran dry in traffic. I'll have to see if there's some kind of adjustment or fix. Additionally, since my helmet won't fit under the seat, I am considering carrying one of those gallon cans of fuel to double my range and guard against further gauge inaccuracy. I'll use a metal one, because I have heard of the danger of static electricity when storing plastic fuel cans in plastic storage areas such as truck beds. Better safe than sorry.

2005-09-08T09:34:00.000-07:00

September 8, 2005.

I have been riding my scooter at night under the radar since I still haven't gotten my motorcycle permit. It is such a good feeling riding with the cool breeze when there's very few people out. I did a late-night test run to work and back, and the bike performed flawlessly. I now think the odometer reads in miles, but I wasn't sure until I clocked the same route with my car. The odometer on the bike is a little off, and reads a little higher than I actually rode, probably about three to five tenths of a mile over the approximately five mile trip to work. Not bad. I'm going to set up some kind of test so I can verify the speedometer and the odometer, probably by using landmarks on the street that are a known distance apart. I have put about 60 indicated miles on the bike with the original tank of fuel, and it's now in the red. I'm not sure exactly how much fuel was in the tank, but it did indicate full when I got it, and it holds 4 liters according to the manual. So for the first tank, I am getting somewhere over 60 mpg. This bike can and did beat every car off the line that I encountered, including a guy in a brand-new Range Rover, who I beat twice. The one thing about this bike to watch out for has nothing to do with the bike. It has everything to do with the fact that even when there are very few people out driving, there will be one person who will try to turn in front of you. I was watching, thank God, but it was a reminder that a small scooter is hard to see.

2005-08-31T20:45:00.000-07:00

Day one:
August 31, 2005. I came home to find my new Tank Sporty 150 fueled up and ready to ride in the garage after my lovely wife took delivery of it earlier in the day. Within two minutes I was riding around the condo complex. Sadly, my new helmet won't be here until tomorrow, so my riding is limited for the next 24 hours to endless laps of the parking lot across the street. This bike is a kick! It fired up the first try with both the electric and kick starters. I checked it out as best I could, and no problems. Lights, horn, signals, mirrors, remote starter, and alarm are all in good shape, and the bike feels very solid. The odometer reads in clicks, so I'll have to do a little math to determine how many miles I put on it, or maybe I'll just cave and learn the metric system. Next, I take my permit test, get insurance (six bucks a month!) and I'm ready to ride.