Honda Spree and Elite 50 Forums

Hello all, new to the forum, hope this hasn't already been covered (couldn't find it, anyway!),but here's a query please. We've got an old Nifty Fifty which is not used often but runs really well except for one problem - when you throttle right off to go down a steep hill, or slow down for a stop sign etc, the engine will cut out. (It's fine when throttled off for stationary idling.) To avoid this cutting out on the over-run, you have to keep the throttle cracked open just a little, instead of letting it back right off. Any ideas please folks?
Many thanks,
Graham H, NZ

Welcome! You may need to clean the carburetor. The jets/passages become gummed up and can restrict the fuel flow-that along with an open or degraded air filter/air box leaking to cause lack of negative pressure which will affect carburetor/fuel performance. There must be an oiled air filter in the air box with no leaks on the cover or holes in the cover. Proper carburetor adjustment is required. Look in the service manual for specs and search for information about cleaning the carburetor properly.
Always allow the motor to “warm up” before going full throttle and avoid the over-revving downhill runs. Your motor is soft-seizing due to lack of cooling/fuel. Check cylinder compression and look up the specs for your particular year spree. Let us know what you find

Thanks for the reply. I seem to recall cleaning out the carb a year or two ago when we had a problem in that the bike would idle but wouldn't rev. We fixed that with the help of info found on the 'net (very likely including this forum!). I think it was just a matter of carb-cleaning and adjustment, plus fixing a leaky air inlet hose or connection (can't recall for sure). After that the bike was fine except for this over-run cut-out matter, which we just lived with until now when we thought we might look into it.

As bike has continued to be otherwise fine, I expect that in the present case the carb is still clean and well-adjusted, and that the air cleaner element and duct is the thing to look at. I think in the previous problem we found the filter was ancient and crumbly as we've never changed it (the bike is hardly ever used, and then only around the local village streets, so performance isn't a huge issue - and there's never any dust in the air). When reading up for the previous problem (the "would't rev"), I do recall learning how critical the air intake restriction is, something I've never encountered in my car-carburettors experience. I fixed it up only minimally before, so I'll have a really good look at it this time round, and we might find we're all OK then.

On your advice about proper warm-up, yes, being classic car fans, we do like to look after our engines, in terms of warm-ups, frequent oil-changes, and avoiding short cold trips if possible. That's for our classic cars - the motor scooter doesn't get quite the same TLC, but we don't mistreat it.
Thanks for the advice about the soft-seizing - it shows me that this over-run cut-out is more than just a minor inconvenience we can live with, but is actually damaging and does need fixing.

Thanks again,
GH

SUCCESS !!! An easy fix, thanks to you blokes. I opened up the cover and at once saw the air cleaner hose had come off the carb. So that got re-attached (along with some fiddling around to make it a little more secure - the hose is a really tight stretch to reach, and the seating design on the carb end is very poor and always likely to come loose).

That might've been enough to fix the problem but while I was in there I checked the air filter element (my hand-cut piece of foam) and found it wasn't a tight fit, so I cut a better one and also soaked that in oil. All back together then, and bravo, no more cutting-out on over-run. In fact the whole thing runs very well apart from two-stroking at light throttle low-speed cruise, which if I took the trouble to read about I guess I could fix with some carb tuning, but it's not that much of a big deal.

Thanks so much for the perfect advice!
Best regards
GH

So glad to see a story with a happy ending.....