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Help,
Just got my sons ET4 125 MOT'd and on the road for his college run. After changing speedo cable I took it out for a test run. when I returned I noticed a very rattly sound.

Further investigation showed it is coming from the rear transmission area and is really noisy at tick over. It seems to fade a tad when you accelerate.

Please can anyone suggest any possible causes, I don't think it is clutch slip but I could be wrong.

I'm worried that if this gets really bad it could damage the engine.

Should I stop him from riding it until its fixed?

Thanks
mark
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Aloha and welcome to the forum. I wouldn't ride it until you figure out what's wrong with it. I'm no so mechanically inclined but it sounds like something is loose, belt or screw maybe. You'll get some expert advice especially from some of your own blokes quite soon. Good luck
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Chances are it's gonna be the variator rollers chattering... Which isn't a problem as such but it would be worth investigating to make sure they aren't too badly worn, and just to be sure its not someone more serious like the variator coming loose etc.
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Bad noise from transmission area
thanks for your response.

I'vr just been out and looked again.

When I started it this time it seemed ok at first. Then the noise and at which point F noticed metal filings coming out the vents on the transmission side.
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That's probably the variator nut come loose then. You'll need a new one (they are one-time use nuts) and while you're in there check the state of the rollers and belt.

Plenty of hints and tips on this in the MV Wiki.
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Thanks Jim.
And now for the 'i'm a 'green' vespa owner moment'

Is it easy to do and do I just need to undo the bolts on the silver casing to get to it, or is it a shop-job?




Thanks
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You'll need some sort of tool to hold the clutch while you take off the clutch-nut, and same again to undo the variator nut, unless you have an impact-wrench handy. It's all fairly obvious when you look at how it's put together, and far easier if you have a bike-lift or some other means of raising the scooter off the ground. It's really worth reading about how to ensure the the belt is to be way down inside the clutch when re-fitting.

Oh - and leave the kick-start well alone!
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Thanks Jim.
I'll have a go at taking the silver casing off tomorrow (rain permitting) and then I'll see if I'm brave enough to attempt it myself.

Oh, yeah reference the Kick Start, do I need to undo it from its shaft to remove the casing cover?


Thanks again, Mark
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No, the mechanism is all attached to the outer case.
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Cheers Jim,
I'll update this thread tomorrow night with how I get on
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Finally got the scoot in the garage out of the rain.

Took off the plastic small trim side cover type thing and had a quick look.


Do I just need to undo the bolts for the silver casing?
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Well, eventually managed to get the casing off. Undoing the air box was tricky as some cowboy had previously rounded off the rear allan bolt mounting.

Ads I discovered::

1. Huge section of clutch wheel broken (will try to attach photo)
2. Toothed ring (cog maybe?) loose


Ok guess i now need anew clutch wheel. Crying or Very sad emoticon
Forum member supplied image with no explanatory text
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I think the penny is dropping at last.

For a couple of weeks it hasnt been starting from the electrics. I thought this was due to a battery fault but I guess this ring is what should be attached to the clutch wheel and which the starter drive then should engage to drive the crank via the clutch assembly.

Judging by the mess in the pics i guess it failed and then eventually caused all this damage.

Oh well more money to spend.

hopefully the repair should be quite straight forward but any advice will be most welcome.


PS looks like i'm now the proud owner of a GTS250 (2007) ( a hostile bid on e-Bay seems to have been the winner).

Will upodate in due course.
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That's damn scary looking.

I wouldn't think that starter alone would cause that much or that type of damage. That scooter looks abused.
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Unfortunately i dont know its history.
I got it a couple of months ago for my son's college in September.

It had not been used for a year or so but in Jan 08 it had a major service whereby the rollers and belt and everything was changed.
It is quite old (1999) but had only covered 9400 kms. (Although the bodywork is typical of a used and abused London bike).

I've just tried to remove the pulley but cant seem to undo the clutch nut.

any suggestions most welcome.

If my diagnosis of events is wrong then anyone suggest what else might cause such damage as I'd hate to repair it for it only to fail again due to an underlying issue.
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Wow! That is by far the most trashed I have ever seen a CVT. I wonder if there may have been a casting flaw in the variator half-pulley.

Yes, the ring gear is what the starter pinion engages when using the electric start. Once that cam adrift, your electric start would not have worked.

BTW, the nut you are having problems with is the variator shaft nut, not the clutch (the clutch is at the other end of the belt). Normally, one would use a holding device that engages teeth in the ring gear to hold the shaft stationary while removing the nut, but that is obviously no longer an option. I'd try using a strap wrench around what remains of the pulley -- wedging the handle inside the transmission case -- to hold the shaft stationary while you remove the nut. An impact driver would work as well.
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Thanks for correcting me. I was unsure (Scooter Virgin you see!)

It sure is a mess, although I have to say i did actually enjoy working on it.

Problem I found was every time I tried gripping the pulley it just disintegrated further!!

Think tomorrow I might try an air gun on it and try to grip it somewhow.

Hey, ho the joys of mechanics!!
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An air gun will work just fine! New outer variator, new variator nut, new belt for certain - and with luck that'll be the end of it. Not too expensive.

Don't worry about being a scooter virgin - as long as you can post pics we can tell you the conventional names of things and what to look out for.

I hope your son is quite light, as that shock absorber is set on the least pre-load, suitable for up to about 11 stone max - and even then most of that weight prefer them up a notch to prevent bottoming out on bad bumps in the road.
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One airgun and one pulley puller later and its off!!!

A quik clean and blow out with hp air. The belt looks fine but should I change it anyway?

Oh, by the way I am really impressed with everyones help. Many thanks.
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My 2 cents worth. While it is open and you are replacing parts, you might as well replace the rollers and belt also. They do not cost much, and replacing them will (hopefully) save you from having to reopen the tranny in the near future.
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Ok, here goes.

Got the new parts today and fitted them (if only that simple)

Opened out clutch to enable belt to sit on the smallest part and hooked variator end over the crank spindle type thingy.

Put on new fixed pulley and started to tighten it back up.

I am a bit concerned that it may cause the pulley to a;pply to much pressure on the belt.

If this is ok then what should i toirque it up to ?


thanks in anticipation
Mark
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mark3eric wrote:
Ok, here goes.

Got the new parts today and fitted them (if only that simple)

Opened out clutch to enable belt to sit on the smallest part and hooked variator end over the crank spindle type thingy.

Put on new fixed pulley and started to tighten it back up.

I am a bit concerned that it may cause the pulley to a;pply to much pressure on the belt.

If this is ok then what should i toirque it up to ?


thanks in anticipation
Mark
If you got the belt seated deeply enough in the clutch pulley, you should not be putting any pressure on the belt at all. The belt should be completely slack at the variator end so that the variator shaft nut tightens up against the hard stop... not the belt. The belt will re-tension itself automatically once the engine is started.

The torque spec is 75 to 83 Nm.
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Well, theres a suprise, guess iv'e just lost my scooter virginity!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Put it all back together and ................... it works.
had to adjust the tickover down a bit but think it'll do.



Clutch sounds a bit clunky though but I'll let my son ride it tomorrow and follow him just in case.

Fingers crossed and hopefully the final update tomorrow.

Thanks everyone for all your support and help.

I'll be posting another thread tomorrow about my new Vespa and the fun i had collecting it from London yesterday (yes it was a tad wet)!!!!!
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Crying or Very sad emoticon Crying or Very sad emoticon Crying or Very sad emoticon Crying or Very sad emoticon Crying or Very sad emoticon

Thought it was too good to be true.


Tick over was almost non existent and the Scoot continually stalled after starting. I adjusted the screw at the bottom left of the air box until it stayed alive (i guess this is the idle adjuster).
Scoot then revved very high and wheel rotated too fast on stand.

Adjusted back down to a point where wheel just turned but could be stopped by hand.

Sounded like a bag of spanners!!!!

Took it out on the road and it was useless at low speeds, very stuttery etc but when it got to about 20mph it seemed to improve and accelerated smoothly upto 45/50 mph.

I will try to attach a video of the noise.

Help
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mark3eric wrote:
Crying or Very sad emoticon Crying or Very sad emoticon Crying or Very sad emoticon Crying or Very sad emoticon Crying or Very sad emoticon

Thought it was too good to be true.


Tick over was almost non existent and the Scoot continually stalled after starting. I adjusted the screw at the bottom left of the air box until it stayed alive (i guess this is the idle adjuster).
Scoot then revved very high and wheel rotated too fast on stand.

Adjusted back down to a point where wheel just turned but could be stopped by hand.

Sounded like a bag of spanners!!!!

Took it out on the road and it was useless at low speeds, very stuttery etc but when it got to about 20mph it seemed to improve and accelerated smoothly upto 45/50 mph.

I will try to attach a video of the noise.

Help
The idle speed adjustment screw is on the forward right corner of the carburetor, facing upward. Can't miss it.

I can think of three possibilities of what might be causing the noise:
1) you got some or all of the rollers in backwards
2) you tightened the variator shaft nut down on the belt because you had insufficient slack at the variator end of the belt when you reassembled. This will cause everything to loosen up when you start riding.
3) you got the wrong size rollers
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Mmmm.

I didn't have to change the rollers because they were done about 600km ago.
I achieved max slack by separating the clutch cones to allow the belt to drop down to the smallest part and hence achieve max length. I checked the belt was not gripped tight by the variator plates when tightening it.

If the screw for the tick over is not the one I adjusted then maybe i have adjusted something that is causing the problem.

Bearing in mind this is a '99 pre-leader 125, then what is the screw I adjusted (nearside bottom front of air box)?

If something was wrong in the rebuild of the transmission then surely it would not run properly above 20mph. As I said, it really did perform well above this speed and accelerated well up to 45mph+.

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mark3eric wrote:
Mmmm.

I didn't have to change the rollers because they were done about 600km ago.
I achieved max slack by separating the clutch cones to allow the belt to drop down to the smallest part and hence achieve max length. I checked the belt was not gripped tight by the variator plates when tightening it.

If the screw for the tick over is not the one I adjusted then maybe i have adjusted something that is causing the problem.

Bearing in mind this is a '99 pre-leader 125, then what is the screw I adjusted (nearside bottom front of air box)?

If something was wrong in the rebuild of the transmission then surely it would not run properly above 20mph. As I said, it really did perform well above this speed and accelerated well up to 45mph+.

Oh... I didn't realize it was a pre-Leader. We don't have those over here, and I'm not sure where the idle speed screw is for them. My Haynes manual mentions that some models have the idle speed screw extended to the front of the air box (although it doesn't say which models), so it's likely the screw you adjusted was indeed for the tick-over speed.

As to the transmission, rollers that are installed backwards or are too small will work reasonably well, but may be noisy. If they are backwards, they will wear improperly. If they are too small, they will never get the transmission into the highest possible gear and will limit the top speed somewhat.
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I have decided to take the cover off and check a few things.

The belt looks to be sitting correctly and is not being squashed at the variator end.



I have attached some pics so if anyone can see anything clearly amiss please comment. (note I have just taken the variator nut off in readiness to remove the fixed pulley if required).
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Ok, never believe what you are told!!!!
The Variator rollers could not possibly have been changed 500Km aglo. They were shot!!!!

So, had them changed at the local shop whilst they assessed overall condition of variator.

Now it's time to re-assemble. Fingers crossed, here goes.
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mark3eric wrote:
Crying or Very sad emoticon Crying or Very sad emoticon Crying or Very sad emoticon Crying or Very sad emoticon Crying or Very sad emoticon

Thought it was too good to be true.


Tick over was almost non existent and the Scoot continually stalled after starting. I adjusted the screw at the bottom left of the air box until it stayed alive (i guess this is the idle adjuster).
Scoot then revved very high and wheel rotated too fast on stand.

Adjusted back down to a point where wheel just turned but could be stopped by hand.

The idle should be adjusted once the engine has fully warmed up.
If you still have stallling/idle problems chances are your idle jet is clogged and needs to be cleaned. This is a fairly common problem on older scooters and scooters that have sat too long.
Not sure how it's done on pre-leaders, but this is how to get to it on the leader engine:
LX150: Idle Jet Change
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Hope that takes care of your issues! You sure got pulled into a project on this one.

I'm still amazed at how much motorcycles and scooters get trashed by using them in London- is this because of using salt on roads in the winter coupled with the wet weather?
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I think it's more because people have them as a means to beat the traffic.
they do get bashed both on the road and more noticeably in bike parks by other selfish gits.

I s'pose once the 'shine' has gone then peeps just fall into a lack of love and respect for the bikes, shame really.
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YEAH Clap emoticon

Finally, took it out for a ride and boy is it running well.

Accelerated very quickly and managed to almost touch 55mph.

That'll do for me.


Thanks everyone for all your help and advice.

Another load of useful lessons learned to add to my degree at the university of Life.

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