Sparkplug

[speeding_ant]

Also the old sparkplug I managed to unscrew with my fingers...Which I was told could be a contributing factor to my problems.. Eg not tight enough bike will lose its compressions when you kick it over.. Someone can correct that or fill me in a little more if need be..

If the spark plug is further away from where it should be it won't actually spark the mix efficiently/or at all, which might be why you're finding it is fouling the plug so fast? Also any "leak" in the chamber will cause compression issues but you wouldnt really find that unless the plug was hanging there . Get someone to show you how to tighten a spark plug properly, its a good skill to learn and it's not that hard! Also, read over the workshop manual if you get really really bored. It's always nice to know things about your bike you might not have known!

Nothing beats a good smile after a good ride! All the best with your RG!

[NotaGoth]

If the spark plug is further away from where it should be it won't actually spark the mix efficiently/or at all, which might be why you're finding it is fouling the plug so fast? Also any "leak" in the chamber will cause compression issues but you wouldnt really find that unless the plug was hanging there . Get someone to show you how to tighten a spark plug properly, its a good skill to learn and it's not that hard! Also, read over the workshop manual if you get really really bored. It's always nice to know things about your bike you might not have known!

Nothing beats a good smile after a good ride! All the best with your RG!

I put the new sparkplug in exactly how I found the old one.. Went down town to get some bright yellow tape so I could tape up the wire that I was uncertain about (a colour that I would find again easily)

Ran into a friend of my dads who came round and showed me how to put the sparkplug in properly and found where the wire went (went where I first thought it may have in the first place before deciding it was a loose wire)

New sparkplugs been in there properly since we changed the old one, and bikes run fine since as mentioned previously..

[90s]

Also the old sparkplug I managed to unscrew with my fingers...Which I was told could be a contributing factor to my problems.. Eg not tight enough bike will lose its compressions when you kick it over.. Someone can correct that or fill me in a little more if need be..

That would be right.

With my first car, a '72 mini, I had a weekly job of checking the sparkplugs - scraping, checking the gap and for pits, tightening etc. Made worse by the need to use 'damp start' spray all the time and HT leads with life expectancies measured in months at most.
From there moved onto to 50cc singles - if the plug isn't in and working perfectly you get all kinds of horrors. Luckily its easy to learn how to take care of the plug & HT leads etc. If you do ever scrape a plug make sure there are no pits etc on the metal and the metal hasn't eroded, been 'burnt' or bent out of shape or that the gap hasn't changed (no idea how the gap changes but it sure can).

Your single relies totally on a good spark, and only has one plug, so its always worth sticking the best plug in. To my mind NZ weather variations between summer/winter do not need different plugs, and your bike will run best on the recommended plug even though it was designed for extreme Malaysian heat (hence the crazy big radiator and the fact it never gets into the 1/4 temp zone). Obviously jump from the bottom of the tank clogging the system doesn't help performance though, but it sounds as though you are getting on with a real mechanics 101 and are sorting it all. When I got that mini I was forced to learn bit by bit as you are until I did weekly and monthly servicing by routine and it all seemed easy in the end - I think we all go through that process of trial and (occassionally expensive) error*.

*(like the time I mixed up Dad's clutch fluid with 2S oil on his little honda and had to, in order, panic then drain it all out - not easy as I'd added it to the fuel tank)

Glad you are enjoying the bike. I miss it sometime but love my 6 totally. Onwards and upwards.

[speeding_ant]

That would be right.

With my first car, a '72 mini, I had a weekly job of checking the sparkplugs - scraping, checking the gap and for pits, tightening etc. Made worse by the need to use 'damp start' spray all the time and HT leads with life expectancies measured in months at most.
From there moved onto to 50cc singles - if the plug isn't in and working perfectly you get all kinds of horrors. Luckily its easy to learn how to take care of the plug & HT leads etc. If you do ever scrape a plug make sure there are no pits etc on the metal and the metal hasn't eroded, been 'burnt' or bent out of shape or that the gap hasn't changed (no idea how the gap changes but it sure can).

Your single relies totally on a good spark, and only has one plug, so its always worth sticking the best plug in. To my mind NZ weather variations between summer/winter do not need different plugs, and your bike will run best on the recommended plug even though it was designed for extreme Malaysian heat (hence the crazy big radiator and the fact it never gets into the 1/4 temp zone). Obviously jump from the bottom of the tank clogging the system doesn't help performance though, but it sounds as though you are getting on with a real mechanics 101 and are sorting it all. When I got that mini I was forced to learn bit by bit as you are until I did weekly and monthly servicing by routine and it all seemed easy in the end - I think we all go through that process of trial and (occassionally expensive) error*.

*(like the time I mixed up Dad's clutch fluid with 2S oil on his little honda and had to, in order, panic then drain it all out - not easy as I'd added it to the fuel tank)

Glad you are enjoying the bike. I miss it sometime but love my 6 totally. Onwards and upwards.

Correct! Also what I did with the RG is cover 1/3 of the radiator with waterproof card (forgot what it was called) as it always ran a little too cold. I fitted a temp sensor and found it was running a good 15 degrees cooler than the RGs reccomended temperature. I noticed a small improvement in performance and I'm sure the engine loved being a little hotter

One relatively easy/difficult? maintainance process you can do is learn how to take the reed valves out and clean the enclosure and the reeds themselves. If it gets really gammy in there you can break the reeds and those reeds are around $300 each!! And you dont want to know what happens if they fall into the cylinder.. See if anyone can do it/help you do it, its even more fun. Just be prepared to get dirty fingers.

I stripped and cleaned the engine every 6 months and racked up tens of thousands of kms on it. It got to 45,000kms before needing a rebuild, then some $(^&)$#(&) destroyed it after slipping on gravel *whistle*.. Such is life

[Squiggles]

two stroke, blow the sh** out of it regularly... i had problems starting and having the bike die when i had one (combination of low octane + alot of SEDATE city riding), took her down the motorway in 2nd gear and POW... there goes a whole lot of crap out the back, ran beaut after that

good trick with the sparkplugs (from my gsxr's haynes manual) is to use a bit of garden hose... put it over it and twist it till the hose starts to slip... that is tight enough (unless of course its getting stuck half way but you can estimate how far down it should go if its wound in fully so can tell if this happens)

[speeding_ant]

two stroke, blow the sh** out of it regularly... i had problems starting and having the bike die when i had one (combination of low octane + alot of SEDATE city riding), took her down the motorway in 2nd gear and POW... there goes a whole lot of crap out the back, ran beaut after that

good trick with the sparkplugs (from my gsxr's haynes manual) is to use a bit of garden hose... put it over it and twist it till the hose starts to slip... that is tight enough (unless of course its getting stuck half way but you can estimate how far down it should go if its wound in fully so can tell if this happens)

That happened to me when I first got my hand on it. After the pow it blew my baffles out with it Then it got so ruddy loud I had to wear earmuffs everytime I went for a ride. Hotdang it was fun when it was loud... Going through Mt Vic at night, clutching the front wheel up.. ahh good times

[FruitLooPs]

Right yeah, RG's eh.

The 'metal box' in your diagram is the piston barrel/cylinder. There is a small box cast into it at the front, thats the powervalve housing. The hose that was full of muck is your powervalve breather pipe as was mentioned. It should have a nipple on the box that it connects to (these often break, i've got a custom bracket holding mine in place). It has a plastic ball down the line yeah.

It prevents you getting oil gunk blown out over your radiator.

The 'loose wire' you mentioned is for your temp guage, this doesn't need to be attached since the temp guage on an RG is essentially useless anyhow haha.

You should go and get a DSE digital thermometer for it like this:

http://www.dse.co.nz/cgi-bin/dse.sto...uct/View/Y5007

attach the meter just under the keyhole with the velcro provided, and put the external sensor on to the top of the powervalve box (the square off the metal thing ) It'll give you a good indication of how hot/cold the bikes really running.

Don't push the 2stroke hard when it's cold, thats how you ruin the longevity of them. Also use fully syth quality 2-stroke oil (like castrol TTS).

Get your powervalves checked and adjusted (they can wear down and cause big $$, as I know) by whoever looks after streetstock races up north (mostly RG's in that class), down in chch Oyster from KB knows the bikes inside out and back to front and services pretty much all of them.



Oh yeah, that picture you put up of the old plug ... it doesn't look like it has the middle bit (electrode), has it snapped off? that'll make the gap waay too big for the spark to be produced and thus it won't run using that plug.

As for hand tight, thats not going to stop it starting - plugs have a crush ring on them that provides a seal that would be good enough to start the 150 even hand tight (now if it was just loose in the hole thats another matter). If you don't think its hauling butt like it should after about 8k rpm then you should get it checked out.

My RG's cost me a fair bit to look after (as in more than I paid for it!) but thats because It's had high KM's for a 2-stroke (like 50,000km) and I do ride it pretty hard (after warming up etc). Have had it rebuilt and new powervalves etc hehe. Great wee bikes, if you get one with lower km's than mine.

[NotaGoth]

Right yeah, RG's eh.

The 'metal box' in your diagram is the piston barrel/cylinder. There is a small box cast into it at the front, thats the powervalve housing. The hose that was full of muck is your powervalve breather pipe as was mentioned. It should have a nipple on the box that it connects to (these often break, i've got a custom bracket holding mine in place). It has a plastic ball down the line yeah.

It prevents you getting oil gunk blown out over your radiator.

The 'loose wire' you mentioned is for your temp guage, this doesn't need to be attached since the temp guage on an RG is essentially useless anyhow haha.

You should go and get a DSE digital thermometer for it like this:

http://www.dse.co.nz/cgi-bin/dse.sto...uct/View/Y5007

attach the meter just under the keyhole with the velcro provided, and put the external sensor on to the top of the powervalve box (the square off the metal thing ) It'll give you a good indication of how hot/cold the bikes really running.

Don't push the 2stroke hard when it's cold, thats how you ruin the longevity of them. Also use fully syth quality 2-stroke oil (like castrol TTS).

Get your powervalves checked and adjusted (they can wear down and cause big $$, as I know) by whoever looks after streetstock races up north (mostly RG's in that class), down in chch Oyster from KB knows the bikes inside out and back to front and services pretty much all of them.



Oh yeah, that picture you put up of the old plug ... it doesn't look like it has the middle bit (electrode), has it snapped off? that'll make the gap waay too big for the spark to be produced and thus it won't run using that plug.

As for hand tight, thats not going to stop it starting - plugs have a crush ring on them that provides a seal that would be good enough to start the 150 even hand tight (now if it was just loose in the hole thats another matter). If you don't think its hauling butt like it should after about 8k rpm then you should get it checked out.

My RG's cost me a fair bit to look after (as in more than I paid for it!) but thats because It's had high KM's for a 2-stroke (like 50,000km) and I do ride it pretty hard (after warming up etc). Have had it rebuilt and new powervalves etc hehe. Great wee bikes, if you get one with lower km's than mine.

Yes you hit it right on the spot as to what I was referring to… Attaches to the box on the front bit that’s facing the radiator..
Umm well I think that hose came loose some time ago cause its really dirty in around that area…. Like gunky now that I look… And when I was taking a look I did wonder what it was for and why it was so dirty…

The picture of the old spark plug isn’t very clear I can’t get a better picture for you.. The electrode is there (not snapped off) just covered in heaps of crap… Mum reckons its fouled (she rides also) Dans taking it into his work to show the guy there who has been offering advice...

Then again hauling butt.. Its my first bike and I wouldn’t have any idea as to how it should be running (haven’t had it long).. Or what its actual pick up should be like as I don’t know the bike.. It is all a new learning curve for me…

The Castrol TTS is whats was being used in it when I purchased the bike.. Ran out and the bike shop up here sold me what he said was pretty much exactly the same thing… then again I learnt in the start not to trust him..

So what exactly is a powervalve and what exactly does it do..? lol

I guess I’ll have to plan a trip to Whangarei by the sounds of it…

I do agree great wee bikes.. And at the end of the day still the best decision I made for my first bike

[FruitLooPs]

I do agree great wee bikes.. And at the end of the day still the best decision I made for my first bike

Yeah they're loads of fun. Use the TTS, not something thats 'similar' try and stick with the same oil, since some are mineral and some synthetic. When I got my bike it was using mineral 2 stroke castrol and it needed a $700 rebuild (probaby not related) but i was told to run TTS by Oyster as thats what the race bikes down here use and its done them great so far. The flatslide carb on them makes them pretty boggy down low, but once you get up in the revs and hit hte powerband they're pretty sensitive to throttle application.

So what exactly is a powervalve and what exactly does it do..? lol

So power valves, they alter the size of your exhaust port basically.

http://www.rgv250.co.uk/Powervalve.jpg they look like that, you've got two in that box at the front. They're actuated by a motor and cable system when it gets a signal to open them (up in the revs).

They're right above where your exhaust joins the cylinder because they move in and out and change the size of the exhaust port/hole. If you see from that picture the smooth curved part of the face on them, that effectively becomes a part of the port for the exhaust gasses, and it can vary by sliding in and out (the blades move, one in the picture is dismantled).

That changes the amount of exhuast flow, depending on ya revs. They're fully in when you first go, making the hole exhaust smaller and helping lower power and they open up when you get past about 7,200rpm from memory.

Basically, as you get to higher revs with them (a smaller exhaust hole in the engine) then you start to lose power because of the restriction, so they open up at the crossover point (in suzuki AETC like on your RG the powervalve is split into 3 parts, so it can be more than just on/off. Smoother) Then it opens up and you have a bigger gap for more exhaust to exit as the revs go up. Vrrrooom!

wiki if you really want to get into it more hehe

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2-strok...r_valve_system