New Zongshen RX3 (ZS250GY-3) Dual Sport

[oldqwerty]

Originally Posted by G19Tony

I put a pigtail on the battery, like I do with all my bikes. It's been on a BatteryMinder charger/conditioner for a few days. I finished up changing the oil and tried to start the bike. It wouldn't even run the fuel pump. I removed the battery, and it was bubbling out from the left side. It was accepting a charge, but the bubbling is disconcerting. I ordered a WPS battery for the bike. I have one on the Grom, and it works a treat!

490-2517 is the replacement for the OEM battery.

http://www.wps-inc.com/catalogs/stre...PAGEGO=Page%23

Boil over is usually due to too powerful a charger. If a charger has enough output to boil the battery it is way too powerful to use as a maintainer. Don't yet know the capacity of a Cyclone battery, but a lead acid should not be charged at a rate over 10% of it's rated Amp Hours (AH). I know a TW battery is 7AH, so that battery should not be charged at a rate above 0.7 amps (700milliamps). The Honda 550 battery is rated only 12AH, which would indicate a max charge rate of 1.2 amps. It's really hard to find a charger that small.

I have a lamp timer that has switches around the clock every 10 minutes. One on, five off, cycles the maintainer 10 minutes each hour, which is plenty to keep a healthy battery with a 10% maintainer charged, with lots of down time to be sure the battery has a chance to cool down between charge sessions.

!0% of AH is the most batteries should be charged. My big truck has 12 Group 27 batteries that provide 432 AH capacity, and all are kept charged by a 10 amp (2.3%) auto charger/maintainer on a timer set 10 minutes on, 50 minutes off, and the electronic on bored recorder, GPS tracker, fuel offset pump, anti-theft, and other electrics and electronics are left on.

Vehicle batteries like it slow and gentle, over an extended period of time.

[SpudRider]

Originally Posted by katflap

Great photos as always spud , I can imagine the more aggressive tyres are a lot better for off road riding. Do they handle ok on the street ?...

Yes, these tires handle very well on pavement, even while riding full throttle on limited access highways.

[SpudRider]

Originally Posted by katflap

...I recently checked my wheel spokes and noticed a few on the front wheel were sounding a bit loose.
I went through the spokes checking every forth spoke in rotation, tightening the loose ones to what felt like the same torque as the tighter ones.
The spokes that were loose now have a low to medium pitched ping compared with the tighter ones.

Do you think that this is good enough or should they all have a similar pitch.

I don't want to end up with an egg for a wheel so reluctant to tighten any further without advice

You are wise to keep the spokes tight. I always examine the entire wheel whenever I change a tire. I also tightened a few spokes on both wheels when I recently changed both tires. You procedure was good, and you wheels should be in fine shape.

After you install the wheel, give it a spin to check for any wobble. When the wheel begins to wobble noticeably, it's time to true the wheel.

[SpudRider]

Originally Posted by Jaume

Hi everybody, a few pics from Lago Caburgua with my ZS RX3.
50 Km away form my place, Pucón, Region de La Araucanía, Chile.

Welcome, and thanks for posting the beautiful photographs from Chile.

[SpudRider]

Originally Posted by katflap

I wanted to tackle the inaccurate speedo problem but am too tight to pay for a speedo healer.

So I fitted a bicycle speedo for £11.50 ($17.40)

To my amazement it works and is accurate ( tested against GPS)

this one is waterproof and auto switches on when moving and off when stopped

That is a true China Rider solution. Does the bicycle speedometer have a backlight for viewing at night?

[SpudRider]

Originally Posted by G19Tony

I put a pigtail on the battery, like I do with all my bikes. It's been on a BatteryMinder charger/conditioner for a few days. I finished up changing the oil and tried to start the bike. It wouldn't even run the fuel pump. I removed the battery, and it was bubbling out from the left side. It was accepting a charge, but the bubbling is disconcerting. I ordered a WPS battery for the bike. I have one on the Grom, and it works a treat!

490-2517 is the replacement for the OEM battery.

http://www.wps-inc.com/catalogs/stre...PAGEGO=Page%23

Thanks for the alert. Also, thanks for posting the good review of the WPS battery, and its replacement number for the RX3.

[SpudRider]

Originally Posted by oldqwerty

Boil over is usually due to too powerful a charger. If a charger has enough output to boil the battery it is way too powerful to use as a maintainer. Don't yet know the capacity of a Cyclone battery, but a lead acid should not be charged at a rate over 10% of it's rated Amp Hours (AH). I know a TW battery is 7AH, so that battery should not be charged at a rate above 0.7 amps (700milliamps). The Honda 550 battery is rated only 12AH, which would indicate a max charge rate of 1.2 amps. It's really hard to find a charger that small.

I have a lamp timer that has switches around the clock every 10 minutes. One on, five off, cycles the maintainer 10 minutes each hour, which is plenty to keep a healthy battery with a 10% maintainer charged, with lots of down time to be sure the battery has a chance to cool down between charge sessions.

!0% of AH is the most batteries should be charged. My big truck has 12 Group 27 batteries that provide 432 AH capacity, and all are kept charged by a 10 amp (2.3%) auto charger/maintainer on a timer set 10 minutes on, 50 minutes off, and the electronic on bored recorder, GPS tracker, fuel offset pump, anti-theft, and other electrics and electronics are left on.

Vehicle batteries like it slow and gentle, over an extended period of time.

Thanks for taking the time to post this thoughtful advice.

[SpudRider]

Originally Posted by katflap

Great photos as always spud ...

Thank you, Kat. Here are a few more photographs from Friday's ride.

[Weldangrind]

Originally Posted by oldqwerty

Boil over is usually due to too powerful a charger. If a charger has enough output to boil the battery it is way too powerful to use as a maintainer. Don't yet know the capacity of a Cyclone battery, but a lead acid should not be charged at a rate over 10% of it's rated Amp Hours (AH). I know a TW battery is 7AH, so that battery should not be charged at a rate above 0.7 amps (700milliamps). The Honda 550 battery is rated only 12AH, which would indicate a max charge rate of 1.2 amps. It's really hard to find a charger that small.

I have a lamp timer that has switches around the clock every 10 minutes. One on, five off, cycles the maintainer 10 minutes each hour, which is plenty to keep a healthy battery with a 10% maintainer charged, with lots of down time to be sure the battery has a chance to cool down between charge sessions.

!0% of AH is the most batteries should be charged. My big truck has 12 Group 27 batteries that provide 432 AH capacity, and all are kept charged by a 10 amp (2.3%) auto charger/maintainer on a timer set 10 minutes on, 50 minutes off, and the electronic on bored recorder, GPS tracker, fuel offset pump, anti-theft, and other electrics and electronics are left on.

Vehicle batteries like it slow and gentle, over an extended period of time.

Excellent guidance! I knew that batteries should be charged nice and slowly, but I never considered a lamp timer, nor did I know the 10% ROT.

[Weldangrind]

Originally Posted by Jaume

Hi everybody, a few pics from Lago Caburgua with my ZS RX3.
50 Km away form my place, Pucón, Region de La Araucanía, Chile.

Welcome, Jaume! Thanks for posting the beautiful pictures.

[paisleyrider]

Spud, I have a question about D-Flex installation, please excuse my ignorance: DIY farkling is quite new to me. Do you think it would be possible to use the stock brake cylinder with the handguards? If not, do you have a recommendation for a brake cylinder with appropriate cable routing to replace the stock one?

[G19Tony]

Originally Posted by oldqwerty

Boil over is usually due to too powerful a charger. If a charger has enough output to boil the battery it is way too powerful to use as a maintainer. Don't yet know the capacity of a Cyclone battery, but a lead acid should not be charged at a rate over 10% of it's rated Amp Hours (AH). I know a TW battery is 7AH, so that battery should not be charged at a rate above 0.7 amps (700milliamps). The Honda 550 battery is rated only 12AH, which would indicate a max charge rate of 1.2 amps. It's really hard to find a charger that small.

I have a lamp timer that has switches around the clock every 10 minutes. One on, five off, cycles the maintainer 10 minutes each hour, which is plenty to keep a healthy battery with a 10% maintainer charged, with lots of down time to be sure the battery has a chance to cool down between charge sessions.

!0% of AH is the most batteries should be charged. My big truck has 12 Group 27 batteries that provide 432 AH capacity, and all are kept charged by a 10 amp (2.3%) auto charger/maintainer on a timer set 10 minutes on, 50 minutes off, and the electronic on bored recorder, GPS tracker, fuel offset pump, anti-theft, and other electrics and electronics are left on.

Vehicle batteries like it slow and gentle, over an extended period of time.

The OEM battery is 11AH. I've been using the BatteryMinder brand maintainers for years, with never a problem.

[SpudRider]

Originally Posted by paisleyrider

Spud, I have a question about D-Flex installation, please excuse my ignorance: DIY farkling is quite new to me. Do you think it would be possible to use the stock brake cylinder with the handguards? If not, do you have a recommendation for a brake cylinder with appropriate cable routing to replace the stock one?

Huck369 installed handguards on his bike with the stock master cylinder for the front brake.

http://www.chinariders.net/showpost....postcount=3267

I installed a spare master cylinder from my Zongshen ZS200GY-2 on my Zongshen RX3.

http://item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm=...ucket=4#detail

[jezzrite]

A few days back I rode through a biblical, tropical, torrential downpour (visibility is about 100-200 meters) for about 50km.

Yeah, not really smart, but I was too lazy to stop, and if I did, I will have to ride a very lonely pass stretching about 30km in the dark, and it gets very spooky there (there have been cases of supernatural stuff there, and I'm not too fond of experiencing it first hand) .

Anyhow, after 20km or so in the rain, the gear indicator disappeared from the display, while others showed what they were supposed to show. I was at 5th gear at that time.

However, when I dropped to 4th gear, or upped it to 6th, the number reappeared. It was just the number 5 that vanished.

After a while, the number displayed normally, as though nothing happened at all.

Waters messing up with electronics? Why only gear indicator was affected?

[Veteran]

Originally Posted by SpudRider

Huck369 installed handguards on his bike with the stock master cylinder for the front brake.

http://www.chinariders.net/showpost....postcount=3267

I installed a spare master cylinder from my Zongshen ZS200GY-2 on my Zongshen RX3.

http://item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm=...ucket=4#detail

I spent 30 minutes carefully crafting a note about these master cylinders and when I went to send it, my internet disconnected and I lost it. So now I'm pissed off....

I'm going to paraphrase what I wrote earlier because I haven't got enough passion to craft the message again.

This master cylinder appears to be exactly like the one on many of the models of chinese bikes here in Haiti. Those models include Zongshen, Apollo, MAK, Haojin, Sukida etc, etc.
I have a MAK 250 and my sight glass started leaking. I looked closer at it and it turned out to be extremely brittle and breaking down. I looked everywhere for a new one and ended up buying a complete new perch (about $30usd). However, I spoke with a lot of the guys working on these bikes, (not just Zongs), and it appears that lots of master cylinder sight glasses last about 6 months to a year and then break down.

Mine was totally broken down and disintegrating, (yes I was using the correct brake fluid). The favorite local fix seems to be to plug the hole and epoxy something in place...not so great as far as I'm concerned. Before I take a ny long trips to remote areas, I'll modify mine with something thicker.

I suspect that the bike manufacturers all buy this item from the same vendor instead of making their own specific to their bike. That makes sense finacially, but it also might mean that the vendor can transfer any production line issues on to everyone.

In this case, I suspect the sight glass which was on my bike, (which is extremely thin plastic), may have been of either substandard or untested material which isn't lasting for years. Yes, I know some of the older bikes have had theirs for years and years without issue. However, since bikes don't last years and years here, I can only go on the few that I've seen that have lived to a ripe old age of over 4 years old. This stuff isn't meant to be Milspec, so I doubt alot of R&D went into the sight glass material selection and as time goes by, production line materials get substituted a lot. Maybe just a bad run, who knows?

Anyway, to keep from going crazy and carefully re-writing my diatribe from earlier; consider keeping an eye on the gauge for cracks and breakdown. I can only theorize that the part Spud posted the picture of is the EXACT same, but it looks like it and all the new Zongs here have the same one I'm talking about.

To all the haters out there hating on Chinese bikes; I could buy a Honda, Suzuki, or Yamaha here, (Haiti), and I do own 5 Yamaha's, 1 Suzuki, 2 Hondas, and a BMW dual sport in the states, but I purposely ride a Chinese bike in this country because it runs...and runs...and runs..and I can get parts for it here that don't leave me panhandling for gas money. This sight glass issue isn't an RX3 exclusive problem, seems lots of newer bikes have suffered from it too.

This better post this time. If it doesn't; watch CNN for drama in Haiti.