Rehab thread roketa

[Angus67]

Grabbed a roketa 200cc (possibly 250) for$40.
Its been beat to hell. I changed the oil today. Black and gritty. Overfilled it with rotell 15/40, drained again. I use a paint screen when i do a oil change on a new to me bike.
It had slivers of alum, and specs of black plastic. Filled it to the spec level
Then i pulled the spark plug. And looks like it was running very well. A bit of fluffy black on the the threads, dark tan on the porcalain. A tad rich, but id ratherrather that than lean.
Figured out wich way is run on the kill swich, and placed the plug grounded to the fins. Kicked it with my hand and got a blue spark. Not brite but blue wich is good. Yellow spark is weak.
I have one of those cameras u can stick in holes. I stuck it in th spark plug hole. Not alot of carbon, piston looks good. Thats all for now. I just dumped 4 qrts of oil in my garage. Toutles!!!

[Adjuster]

Congrats on the new project! Try to get us a video of the very first cold start, that would be cool.



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[Angus67]

Will do.
While lifting it up on my atv jack, i heard a clunk. The head bearings and lock nuts are very loose. Is there tapered bearings in there or races with loose bearings? I didnt look too much at it. Im glad i couldn't start because I would've road it.

[Ariel Red Hunter]

Originally Posted by Angus67

Will do.
While lifting it up on my atv jack, i heard a clunk. The head bearings and lock nuts are very loose. Is there tapered bearings in there or races with loose bearings? I didnt look too much at it. Im glad i could start because I would've road it.

They are semi caged ball bearings. Perfect opportunity to get some good grease into those bearings!...ARH

[Angus67]

U mean like a bicycle?

[Weldangrind]

They're likely to be loose ball bearings in the Roketa. I slide the forks out of the triples and then hang a one gallon ice cream bucket under the lower triple. I can at least capture most of the loose ball bearings that way. Only my Lifan had caged bearings.


BTW, spec oil level is according to the sight glass, not the dipstick. The dipstick is wrong in most applications.

[Angus67]

I went with the sight glass. Any idea the size of the balls in the head ? I have plenty of 5/16 from converting old yamahas to tapered.

[Megadan]

There likely is a set of tapered roller bearings that fit your head stock. I have a set of All Balls Racing bearings for my Hawk, which are 26mm I.D. 47mm O.D., and 15mm Tall (thick). A common dimension for Honda XR and CR/CRF dirt bikes.

If you measure the outer race and inner race it should give you the specs you need. If they match the ones I listed above, then the part number is 99-3520-5, and is sold as a single bearing and seal kit. Both bearings can be had in a complete kit as part number 22-1021.

If you can get your dimensions, then you can use this chart to determine what individual bearing you need. https://www.allballsracing.com/media...gSizeChart.pdf

Make sure to verify the dimensions of both bearings. They are likely the same, but sometimes bikes do use different sizes top and bottom, and better safe than sorry.

Now, with all of that said, there is nothing wrong with the old Tapered cone and ball bearing style head stock bearings. While technically tapered roller bearings are more well suited to the job, there are plenty of bikes out there that have gone hundreds of thousands (even a million miles in the case of some old Goldwings) with this style of bearing. As long as they are properly maintained and greased, they will last for a very long time. So if the cup/race and ball bearings are not pitted or worn out of round, then you can save yourself some time and money and simply clean them up really well and give them a good greasing.

I converted both of my bikes to tapered rollers. The Goldwing because the old ones were pitted due to a long life being stored with no maintenance, and the Hawk because I could.

[Angus67]

Started on wire clean up. The igniter, flasher unit, and starter relay and ignition box were just hanging under the seat. I plan on dirt only, so I deleted the turn signal circuit, and the starter circuit, it was already hacked apart. snugged up the connectors for the coil, and zip tied all components securely to the frame work.
Since I don't have any plastics for this bike, I cut off the side panel mounts, starter relay mount, took off the air diverters from the front of the frame, and used black appliance paint on the bare spots.
I plan on bypassing the key switch. Wich wires coming out of the switch do i need to splice together? Also, which wires from the left control box are the headlight leads? I have a grote 6led head light for this project. It is super bright.
Today i will delete the rest of the turn signal leads from the harness, as well as the horn, more useless mounts, and rewrap the front end of the harness. The protective covering is severely chafed but has protected the wires within.

[Angus67]

The first wires im holding are the ignition switch wire. How to bypass?
The second pic of wires im holding are the left control box wires. Wich is the headlight wires?

[franque]

This is a bit complicated, but here goes!

For the ignition switch, splice the Black and Red wires together (but it would be better to get a new switch if you don't have a key, because it will keep all of the components on) if you want the electrical components besides the motor (i.e. charging system, starter, blinkers, headlights, etc.) to work.

If you just want the bike to run, and you don't mind not having components working, check if you have spark first when you do this, but you should be able to unplug the switch, so that the black/white wire isn't grounded, even if the ignition switch is off. If you don't have a kill switch, you will have to ground the black/white wire to shut it off.

You could just jumper the Black and Red wires if you have a pre-existing kill switch. Hope that helps!

As for the headlight, I'd either get a powerprobe iii (they're like $90 on Amazon) and using it, figure out on the harness side which is ground, and then, unplugging the harness, on the headlight plug side, ground the ground wire, and send 12v to the non ground wires until you have which wire controls the headlights figured out. If you're cheap, and not averse to potential shocks, you can do the same with two wires, or a test light (for verifying ground).

[Angus67]

Thanks perfect. Im making it kick only . Only head a d tail. Nothing else.

[franque]

I'd almost consider making a custom harness then, and running the lights off of AC power, unless you want to keep the charging system intact. I'm not sure where you're located, but I've got a dirt-only harness that I'd almost consider trading for yours if you'd cover shipping cost... PM me if you're interested! I'd love to have all the street legal stuff, and it'd save you some time/headaches!

[Ariel Red Hunter]

Originally Posted by Angus67

Thanks perfect. Im making it kick only . Only head a d tail. Nothing else.

Tradionaly, magnetos were wired to a push button, which grounded out the magneto in order to shut off the engine, like on a Francis-Barnett. No key switch necessary. The other coils in the alternator used to be called lighting coils. The lighting coils supply a-c power to the lamps, unless there is a rectifier in the circuit, which is necessary if we desire to charge a battery. In days of yore, when you bought your motor cycle, you could specify ignition only, ignition and lights for a little more cashola, or for considerably more money, a rectifier and a battery to run the lights. In England, which required lights for parking on the road, a dry cell battery powered little glow-worm bulbs, front and rear, seperate from the main lights, if you chose not to go the rectifier-battery route. The electrical generating system is more similar than dis-similar to this system on Chinese bikes. You can run your ground wire to the right handlebar to ground out the magneto, and shut off the engine, and run a-c through a simple switch to control the headlight and tail light, and a brake light, if you want one. The number of lighting coils provide the voltage, so check total lighting voltage with the engine running at various speeds to make sure the voltage is low enough for the lamps. If it is too high, cut out 1 lighting coil at a time until you get where you need to be. LED bulbs function just fine from 8 volts to 20 volts, so keep that in mind....ARH

[Angus67]

Its pretty butchered. Hence why stripping it down.