Maintenance Help For A Noob

[soyfarsoygood07]

Hey! I'm new to this board and have had my 06' Ruckus since last August.

I've since ran out of my warranty and it's just like in the cartoons, my Ruckus has been acting up ever since the warranty ran out.

My Ruckus is my first vehicle so I'm new to maintaining a vehicle. I can do the general stuff, spark plug, filter, etc, but my problem seems to be coming from the inside. I made sure a Honda dealer checked it all out before I ran out of warranty and they say I have no problems. I say otherwise. lol

When I start my Ruck it seems to struggle to get going, and then needs a warm up time regardless of the weather. The Summer I had it, it was perfectly fine. Start it and go. I ran through the winter with having to let it warm up in the cold mornings. That seemed fine. Now this summer, If I don't let it warm up the engine sounds wet and will rev up and down regardless of speed. Sometimes it just stops working and will not start or kick. In the heat of the day, I have to kick start it (battery issues?) and even then it may start or it may not. On top of that, in the winter, my speedo lost 5mph accuracy, and my kick start seems really rough.

I need to fix these issues, because I rely on my Ruck as daily transport down 10 miles of winding road. My issue is probably my great n00b factor, but before I go cracking things open, I figured I should ask people who know what they're doing. I don't mind spending time tinkering, but it's like when I started building computers, I pretty much destroyed four old computers figuring out how everything works because I didn't have help. lol I don't have four Ruckuses to mess with. lol

If anyone can help me in any way, this n00b with be greatly in debt to the guru's of Interweb Ruckdom.

[Dandy Dan]

How do you know your speedo lost 5mph of accuracy? The Ruckus speedo is a mechanical thing so I can't really see how that would change.

How many miles are on your Ruckus?

I'd say you probably want to get your valves adjusted (see valve adjust how-to in the 'how-to' section of this site) and you're also probably due for a new plug and airfilter. Having valves out of adjustment is common and it can really mess with your starting and performance in hot weather etc.

As for the battery not working, it could be a bad connection at the terminals. The wires screw to the terminals so check and see if these screws are tight. It's not unheard of for these to come loose.

[jedisabre7]

where are you located? maybe there's a fellow ruckster in your neighborhood?

[soyfarsoygood07]

I lived in the Niagara region (St. Kitts) near Port Weller, but now I'm down south in Tennessee for Uni (Cleveland, TN).

DD, I've almost put on 8000mi on good ol' Rusty

The only reason I figured my speedo went weird on me is because of the weather. Canadian weather is a bit predictable and you expect cooler weather and more wind in September and October. Our town in TN is in some sort of a mountain bowl and the weather is always in extremes with little or no wind. So it was hot, hot, hot, hot, then really cold. Winter was crazy enough that days could be 25-30C high and -10-0C low nights. On top of that, that temp difference makes for soaking wet dewy mornings that sometimes froze.

My speedo goes up to 45mph. but the needle never makes it there. Even downhill when you can feel the Ruck reach max speed the needle sits at 39mph.

I've seen a few other riders in town and a couple on campus but they're like me. They either have friends that work on these things or they go to a dealership, and they're all Yamaha riders. And the "friends" they employ own small looking chop shops I think I may have seen on 60 minutes. lol. I'd rather learn myself and save the hassle of getting Ruck home from a shop and finding my battery has been replaced with a hamster and wheel. ha ha!

Thanks for the help and info, I'll start looking around on the board for those guides.

[Dandy Dan]

Generally speedometers read higher than the vehicle can actually go...39mph seems like a pretty normal top speed so I would guess that's accurate. If you used to read higher I would say that's because your Ruckus needs maintenance, not because the speedo has lost accuracy. To run the speedo there are basically gears at both ends so I don't see how the ratio could vary.

Anyways, I would do the valves...the valve gaps always get off over time and if the gaps grow too large you lose power and can even get a ticking noise. If they get too tight then your valves don't seal properly and you lose compression which makes for hard starting and a general loss of power as well. At 8000 miles you're definately due for an adjustment.

[soyfarsoygood07]

A ticking noise is a very good description of how my scoot starts. I'll throttle up and most of the time, I'll lose power very quickly if I go full throttle. It revs down and there's this loud rapid ticking sound which usually cuts of my engine.
LOL
Yeah, I can see I'll need to get on this soon. I'm in Canada right now, but class starts on Wednesday for me. Hopefully I can coax another half week out of ol' Rusty and fix it on the weekend.

*******
Let me ask another question here. I've been looking a few recent threads about oil changes and transmission changes. I've had an oil change, but I can't vouch for my transmission oil. It's whatever Honda did to it. If I plan a weekend fixer-upper, would you recommend taking a look at it, or replacing the oil? I got the oil done in July, but it's been a super hot month (35-40) Do I also need to look at lubing my kick start? It kicks like it's rusted...(hence "Rusty" heh heh)

I figure since I need to do valves, I'll go the bases and learn it all. Any oil suggestions? Tran oil? Kick lube?

[Dandy Dan]

Since you're having trouble starting it and probably using the kickstater more than most it is a good idea to keep it lubed up and working good. It's very common for Ruckus kickstarters to get gummed up over time so I'd do that.

As for the transmission oil, yeah you're supposed to do it every 10,000kms (or it that miles?) so you're like due for one. Unfortunately Honda didn't give us a drain bolt as diassembling the transmission takes a few hours so your best bet is to go for a ride so the transmission oil warms up and then remove the filler bolt and tilt the scooter way over to drain it. Just get as much as you can and then fill it back up to the bottom of the bolt hole. Generally I overfill it and just leave the bolt out and let it drip until it stops since that's the perfect level. To fill it you need a syringe, a small small funnel, a bottle with a filler spout or a turkey baster.

As for the engine oil...yes change this often. This is one of the most important things if you want your Ruckus to last a long time. I like to change it every 1000kms (600 miles) and I use 10w40 oil which is a bit thicker which I think helps a bit too because it gives you a thicker film on the bearings etc.

A recommend using:
Kickstarter Lube: Anything....WD40, Silcone Lube, 3n1 Oil....whatever!
Transmission Oil: Get gear oil that says 'Hypoid' on the bottle. SAE 90 is recommended but 80w90 or 70w90 will also be fine...anything around 90 is cool.
Engine Oil: I recommended full synthetic 10w40 (or 0w40) oil. My favourite is Amsoil 0w40 Powersports oil.

Make sure you do all this stuff yourself...it's easy. Once you've done it once you'll laugh at how you were unsure about doing it.

[soyfarsoygood07]

Hey again! I'm still here, but I'm in class now. First two days on campus and our whole network was down. lol.

I mentioned my repair plans to a few people and got quite and earful about my lack of experience. One person told me, if I could gap my valves, we'd open a shop together and I could be the manager. *groan* southern sarcasm. For now, I'm going to hold off on repairs to check things over with the Honda dealer. I've been told to take the scoot back and complain about the work recently done, and I'll probably do that so I can keep the peace here with my redneck friends. lol

I've been looking at "Timber's Valve Gap Guide" and everything seems straight-forward. Looking at the time involved here, I can see no way that the Honda dealer even touched my valves(last repair took 1hr). Does Honda adjust the gaps in maintenance repair? They've only gone by what's in the manual and my mileage.

For now, I'll take the Ruck back to Honda and research a bit more about valve gaps and where everything is on the Ruck. lol. I'll plan to do the gaps later, but I need to wait till this blows over. ha ha! Down here in the South, I'm feeling like a mouse in a land full of cats, or like a fox being pursued by hounds...very opinionated hounds! lol!

Thanks for all your help, and I'll be sure to let you know guys know how this goes.

[Dandy Dan]

Don't let those people get you down....the valves in the Ruckus are much easier than other bikes because we only have one cylinder and that cylinder only has 2 valves so you've got 2 valves total....unlike a sport bike which has 4 cylinders and 4 or 5 valves each for a total of 16-20 valves. As well, accessing the valves isn't that hard. In other bikes you often need to move stuff like the radiator and gas tank before you can get at them. This may be why others are skeptical of your chances for success.

Honestly, getting the floorboard and valve cover off is easy. Nothing can go wrong here. The aspect of this job that is most frequently done wrong in my opinion is that people don't rotate their piston to 'Top Dead Center' of the compression stroke. They just get the piston to the top but they don't check if it's at the top of the exhaust stroke or the compression stroke. There are marks in the head that line up to tell you when the piston is all the way to the top and that's easy to do but half the time when the piston is at the top it is exhailing the exhaust so the exhaust valve is still open a crack when the piston is all the way up. If you try to measure the gap here you won't be able to get a reading unless you really force the feeler guage in there. The other half of the time the piston is at the top is when it's finishing the compression stroke and just about to ignite the mix and this is where you want it to be when you check the gaps because both valves are shut so the gaps exist. If you remove your spark plug and put your finger over the spark plug hole while you turn the engine over slowly with the kickstater (using your hand) you'll feel a blast of air every little bit. This is when the engine is supposed to be compressing the air (but you're letting it escape). You'll notice every time there's a blast of air the timing marks also line up which is exactly the point you want them to be at when you do the valves. Once you're good at this you can just leave the spark plug in and you can tell when it's on the compression stroke because that's the 'hard' part of the engines cycle since it's compressing the air so you can feel the added resistance in the kickstarter but for now just put your finger over the spark plug hole and you'll have no trouble telling when the piston is all the way to the top at the compression stroke instead of the exhaust one.

About your dealer, yeah they likely haven't done the valves because Honda doesn't recommend checking them until 10,000 miles I think. Perhaps Honda did this to make the Ruckus appear low maintance and to keep things affordable for the owners but the reality is that some people have had their valves way off by 500 miles and virtually everyones Ruckus can use a valve tune up after a few thousand miles. You'd have to be very lucky to make it to 10,000 miles without the valves hurting your performance.

Why don't you take the floorboard off and take the valve cover off and atleast have a look? Then if you feel comfortable take it a step further and set the engine to TDC (top dead center) of the Compression stroke and start measuring. NOTHING can go wrong up until the point that you actually remove the old shims and put new ones in unless you somehow drop a bolt down into the engine or something. Just print this post off and print off the how-to guide and go play with your engine. Take is slow and if you get uncomfortable stop and come on here and ask. It's very easy to take your Ruckus apart to get to the valves and to put it back together so if you do something wrong it'll be because your piston wasn't at TDC of the compression stroke or because your math sucks and you didn't buy the right new shim.

[soyfarsoygood07]

Thanks DD.! I can see no harm in measuring, and that's a good step before taking the plunge (so to speak). I'll have to go get a set of feelers, but..um..what's a shim? and can I get them at Auto Zone?

I'll still probably go to Honda to hear the same thing you've told me "We don't adjust until 10,000mi or more", and then I'll get the estimate, only to hear that someone knows a guy that knows a guy who can fix it for less. Ah, yes.. the circle of life.

I'll still have to tuck away to do the measurements. I can just see...I'll be down some dark alley somewhere, and the cops will come by and be like, "Excuse me son! What are you doing back here!". "SHHH! I'm measuring my gaps! and I don't want anyone to find out!"

[Dandy Dan]

soyfarsoygood07 said:

I'll be down some dark alley somewhere, and the cops will come by and be like, "Excuse me son! What are you doing back here!". "SHHH! I'm measuring my gaps! and I don't want anyone to find out!"

Ha Ha Ha!

Without a shim there is a large gap between the valve and the 'rocker arm' that presses on it. The shim fits into the top of the valve to reduce this gap from about 2mm down to the recommended gap which is .10mm for the intake valve (top one) and 0.19mm for the exhaust valve (bottom one). The exhaust gap is supposed to be bigger because the exhaust valve get hotter and expands more. The idea is that when your engine is hot the parts all expand leaving virtually no gap which is why you can only accurately measure the gaps on a cold engine.

The shim is a small round thing about as thick as a penny (but of course that varies) but only as big around as pencil erasor. There is sort of an indentation on the top of the valves that the shim rests in. To get the shim out you can just slide the rocker arm off to one side and then lift the shim out with some tweezers, needle nose pliers, a magnet etc. Just don't drop it down in the engine.

No you can't get the shims at Autozone...you'll have to go to your local Honda dealer. 90% of Honda's bikes uses these shims although a few bikes use bigger ones and a few bikes don't use shims. The mechanics will have a box of shims in the back that they'll just trade you for yours if they're nice. In my experience, sometimes the parts guys won't believe you that they're the same shims as used in the CBR's etc and they'll insist on ordering you one but just ask to see the box of shims the mechanics have in the back. I had a huge argument with my parts guy once that ended up with him eating humble pie.

About the feeler guage...I find it easier to do all the valve math in metric (millimeters) because that's what the shims come in so I recommend making sure whatever feeler guage you buy is in metric (or both) and also make sure it goes nice and thin. To actually measure the gaps, it's easier if you bend the last 1/2" of the feeler at an angle...it'll just be easier to get it in but this will make more sense once you're actually in there. I would guess that your valves gaps are probably too small so you'll need thinner shims to enlarge the gaps but you never know.

[soyfarsoygood07]

Hey again!

I found part of my scooting troubles. My battery was worn out pretty badly, and I figured maybe my charging system was a problem. Thankfully, I got some very straightforward answers, and I'm coaxing a bit more life out of my battery by charging it every week. I'll still need to get a new one soon, but, I'm surprised that these small batteries don't last long. Of course though, that's just my inexperience.

It was suggested, that for the winter months, I make sure it's hooked up to a trickle charger. That works for me!

<n00b>The charging solved my ignition problem</n00b>, but I've still not yet dove into gapping. My excuse is my school work, but man!...On a chilly morning, TICKATICKATICKATICKATICKARUMBLETIKTIKTIKTIKTIKTIK . LOL! I think I'll need to deal with that soon.

[varroa]

i think you should go for the obvious first: variator rollers and belt.

my kn kikaku 6g rollers worn so much after only 1000 miles, that my speed dropped from 42.5 mph to about 39.5. i imagine, stock ones last much longer, but look into that. plus the belt. the narrower it gets, the lower it rides on the front pulley (given that the squeezing power is the same), the slower you go.

and change oil, often!!!

a lot of people here say to change it once every 600 mi, but just as an experiment, someone should try to change it every 300 miles (that's what i do). it will be just as black. and as far as i know, black oil is not good for the engine.