As some of you might know, my Grandson and myself bought a Jonway Madness 50cc, spares or repair. Well it must have been owned by a butcher, as it requires a bit more attention that I first thought. Every time we do something there are screws and bolts missing. The cdi had been cut off with a pair of wire cutters. Anyway I bought a replacement cdi. We had to work out the wiring, but with the help of a wiring diagram, provided by Milo 2025, we managed to rewire it. Turned it over and yes we have a spark. Not a great big huge vivid blue spark, but a spark. It is a lot better than the one we had on the Gas Gas, that one could only be seen at night, but the bike ran ok. Put the new plug back into the bike (Who ever designed it should be shot. Very fiddley. Dropped it into the fan cover, so had to remove the cover to get it back.) and spun the engine over. Nothing. OK lets get the carb out. Here we discover that it is only the carb that is holding the airfilter in place, all other bolts are missing. The Grandson removes the carb and opens it up. "Look at this Granddad". I look at it and there is a bit of mild corrosion on the inside of the float bowl, but nothing major. "Thats ok" say me. "No look Granddad, theres no petrol in the carb" Sure enough it was bone dry. Now I had put a couple of pints into the tank last week so I knew it was not empty. Well to cut a long story short, after getting the tank out. (Not an easy job) we find there is no vacuum pipe attached anywhere. We also realise that the is no auto choke attached to the carb, and there is only one screw holding the float bowl on. I found this out when we worked out the two cut wires were for the choke. So now I need some tubing for the vacuum and some screws and a new choke. Do you think that I should buy a new carb, about £35 on ebay? Might be easier. Still t is a learning curve for the Grandson, he must be doing ok as I did not notice the dry carb, but he picked up on it. Will keep you all updated on the further trials and tribulations of this bike, but beginning to regret buying it.
No harm in buying a new carb, but crucial to make sure it's jetted properly. Look forward to a future update! Hopefully when it's all sorted you'll be pleased you bought it
Hi Milo, just ordered a new carb. £15 on ebay. OK on jetting, will be able to use the jets out of the old one if required. Merry Xmas to you and yours.
Yes will do, don't worry. I will let you all know whats happening till the final outcome. Nothing worse than someone with a problem and they get advice etc, and never let you know the outcome, or what the fix was. Still awaiting the new carb and vacuum tube, so hopefully will do some more on Saturday.
Yeah swap the jets over, but give them a clean with compressed air. Another trick while you have it apart, blow some air through the plug and intake manifold while turning the motor over.
Thanks for that Scuba, but the compressed air here, is as hard as the grandson can blow. Why blow compressed air into in plug and air intake? Anyway the new carb and vacuum hose arrived this morning, so will see if we can work on it this weekend.
It's just a trick for blowing all the crap out the motor if its not been started in a long time, or if its tried to be started a whole load of times. I do this for a job, don't question my often strange comments just follow =) You can just check the jets are the same numbers instead of swapping over
Thanks for that Scuba. I was not questioning your sanity in asking, just wanted to know why. If we do fire compressed air down there, then the grandson will want to know why. Granddads must always have an answer, and if it is the truth it is so much easier. Anyway once again thanks for the advice wilco.
Hi all, and welcome to the next exciting chapter of, Nubsey and the Jonway, or John Wayne as we now call it. Well we fitted the new carb, after blowing out the port holes with carb cleaner, as no airline available. Thats when the fun started as we could not fit the throttle cable. Grandson thought that the hole for the cable nipple was to small, so we ripped the carb out and found out that it was. So get the drill out and find a suitable drill, only to find that the drill had a flat battery. Waited for the drill to get a bit of a charge and managed to enlarge the hole and fit the throttle cable. Fitted the new vacuum pipe, and turned it over. Nothing, not a bang, whisper or murmer. Grandson suggested we squirt some carb cleaner in the air intake, and lo and behold the enginge burst into life for a few seconds. Tried this a couple of times but could not get it to run more than a couple of seconds. Still at least it seems to run. So we have a fuel problem. Pull the carb off again to see if there was any fuel in the carb. Turns out it was bone dry. Sucked on the vacuum pipe but no fuel coming out of the fuel pipe. Remove tank a fuel line from tank and suck again, success there is fuel coming out of the tank. Then realise that some dip stick had run the fuel line over the top of the frame. This made it go higher than the fuel tank, so no wonder we were not getting any fuel. Re-routed the fuel pipe refitted everything and hey presto, we have a runner. Next problem is that it would not stop running when we turned off the key. Also I do not think that the engine is charging the battery. So still work to be done on the electrics, including refitting / replacing all the bulbs. Any way I was supprised just how sweet and quite the engine sounds. Will continue with further updates as they happen. By the way we call it John Wayne because it looks rough seems tough and don't take crap from anyone. See you all again soon, and hope you all have a very happy new year. Nubsey
