Honda Spree and Elite 50 Forums

Hey gang! Long time no see.

So the spree season is back and I've pulled my 87 spree out of storage.

Ran beautifully after the fuel stabilizer burned through, until now.
The other night on the way home from work it died, I could maintain an idle but any throttle and it immediately would die. Bought a can of carb cleaner while walking it home and ran it through the carb while idling. This got it going again and I made it home.

Jump to today. It refused to go over 10mph, the engine wouldnt rev up to it's normal rate (my hearing test). It sounded like I was only at half throttle.
Swapped carb for a freshly cleaned one I had lying around, same symptoms. Checked fuel and vaccuum lines and everything seemed fine there. Throttle cabled seemed to be doing it's job, but I might just be a poor judge.

Also, I have a Gates 7240 belt on there which I had planned to swap to an OEM honda. Could slippage be the issue? I would think though, that if the belt was slipping, the motor would just overspin with no power being put out.

Sorry for the wall of text but I figured I'd try and give you guys as much info as possible.

-thekingof7

PS. Dont buy gates 7240 for the spree, it is garbage.

in my experience , when you have a normal idle, and a normal first 1/4 throttle, but everything is flat after that, you have to much air / not enough fuel.

it aint a slippen belt if the engine dont rev up

Well I was fiddling around with it some more. And I've got some good and weird news.
I tuned the carb per these intructions http://hondaspree.net/wiki/index.php5?t ... ts_-_Spree
Idles great, sounds fine.

I tried running it without the airbox or filter and it runs just fine, no speed issues. Even with only the boot hooked up (not connected to air box) the issues return.
Why would the motor not have enough vacuum to pull an adequate air amount through the filter?

Reeds? Piston?

Thanks guys.

The spray carb cleaner won't do much. There is nothing to clean with it when spraying in the carb throat really. It will disperse the oil from the moving parts and cause issues though. Check the carb mounting bolts, air hose, air box lord and the air filter. If the air filter decided to rot and disintegrate then that could cause a lean issue. Which it sounds like to me. Busted reeds will be hard starting but will rev up after you hit a certain point. A spree may rev up on the stand with no air box or air filter, but as soon as you put it under load it will only go 10mph maybe or less or die altogether when you get off the pilot jet. Unless you up jet the carb by a ton you will be lean as hec and burn the thing up.

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patthesoundguy wrote:The spray carb cleaner won't do much. There is nothing to clean with it when spraying in the carb throat really. It will disperse the oil from the moving parts and cause issues though. Check the carb mounting bolts, air hose, air box lord and the air filter. If the air filter decided to rot and disintegrate then that could cause a lean issue. Which it sounds like to me. Busted reeds will be hard starting but will rev up after you hit a certain point. A spree may rev up on the stand with no air box or air filter, but as soon as you put it under load it will only go 10mph maybe or less or die altogether when you get off the pilot jet. Unless you up jet the carb by a ton you will be lean as hec and burn the thing up.

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I only did that spray to get moving again. That carb has been replaced on the ped with a freshly cleaned one, the old one is soaking now. The issue with 10 mph still happened with the cleaned carb. I noticed that with only the hose connected to the throat with no air box the speed issue still happens so the filter is fine.
When driving breifly with no airbox attached, the startup was weak until I got up to speed.
Could this be reeds?

I had muched reeds and thats what it did. Just pull the intake tube off and have a look. You might be able to see down in the intake tube with a flash light. Also another cause of a bog way down low that revs up once you get above a certain point could be a worn cylinder and rings. Especially if the bog is worse the more you drive in a particular trip. I had this issue as well. Pull the head and have a look at how shiny the cylinder walls are. My spree had obsence Compression reading of 150 psi with no carbon build up.

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Appreciate the advice. I'll have to check on the reeds once the rain ceases.
Are there any signs of wear for the reeds I should be watching for?

Thanks

Greetings:

Broken corners, of course. But even if they're intact, the block must be removed to assess how/if they close all the way - stainless touching plastic to the tip. Hard starting, boggy low-end performance and normal high-speed operation are all symptoms of reed valve regurgitation.

So it runs with the inlet air tube off, but not on? That's exactly the opposite of what usually happens. What you're describing sounds like running rich, but I'm not really sure why that would be the case.

After you've checked your intake (doesn't sound like reeds to me), I'd check your exhaust... port from piston out of jug, and exhaust itself. Perhaps plugged up.

Wheelman is right, when my reeds got munched a year ago this week actually, it had the symptoms of running rich. And noise guy is also onto something with the pipe, mud dobbers love to make homes in the ends of pipes.

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Sorry guys, I didn't realize all this advice had come in. Once home, Im gonna check compression. Then reeds.

I'm resurrecting this thread.

I finally got around to checking the reeds. They looked fine.
The engine will not rev up after putting even just the boot in the carb intake. As soon as you remove the boot the RPMs go back up to "normal"
Just curious but would loose mounting bolts for the carb cause an issue similar to this? This old one are a bit stripped.

I'm baffled.

Greetings:

Quoth King7:

Just curious but would loose mounting bolts for the carb cause an issue similar to this? This old one are a bit stripped.

Uhhhm, yeah! That's a critical fault. Don't bother tuning anything else until you get that carb mount tight. Lotsa ways to do it. I favor tapping for 1/4 x 20 hardware store bolts - a bit larger, so a bit stronger, but don't over-torque or you start over. Drill the manifold/heat insulator to 17/64.

Thanks for the tip. I will likely try for some longer bolt with washers and nuts, compress that carb on there. Let you guys know how that goes.

-thekingof7