Winterizing the small scooter!

Today I decided to winterize the Kymco People 200 scooter.  Folks get mad at me for just writing the blog and not including pictures, so here is the Kymco.....

I tried to sell this scooter when I purchased the Suzuki, but it didn't have much interest on Craig's list.  So like usual, I would not just give it away, so I kept it.  It has been at the lake for the last couple of years and I have ridden it down there when we were in town.  But this fall I brought it back to KC for the winter.

We will take the Suzuki with us to Arizona, so it won't need winterizing, but this one will remain here, so I do some special stuff to make sure it starts next spring.  Of course the major enemy of all small engines is gasoline.

The stuff turns to a gunky varnish when left for long periods of time without being used.  For that reason, I usually use Sta Bil in the fuel in all my small engines because you never know how long it will be before you start them again.

But the darned scooters seem to be sensitive even when Sta Bil is used.  So I began draining the gas tank and running the carb dry.  Today while it was so sunny and mid 70s outside, I drained the gas out.  This requires that the seat and the storage compartment underneath be removed and the gas lines be disconnected from the carb.

This seems straight forward, but I had forgotten one little fact.  Gas will not just come running out of the tank thru the tubing.   There is this valve on the bottom of the tank, that requires the engine to be running and create a vacuum on the second hose to open the primary fuel line. It took me a while to remember how this all worked, and by that time I had run all the gas out of the carb.

I had to bend over and suck on the vacuum line and hold it against my tongue while the gas ran out of the tank.  My bend over is still compromised, so that began to cause pain long before the little stream of gas emptied the tank.  Eventually it was empty and we were done.  I will put the battery tender on it before we leave the house.

In the basement, I managed to go paint the door jamb going into the shop area today, which is the final door that needs to be painted.   Once it was dry, I rehung the door and installed all the hardware back on the door.  Now there is a mile of mop board to fill all the nail holes and paint.  It will take miles of masking tape to keep the enamel off of the walls.

Tomorrow I will go see about ordering carpet.  There is some question about whether it will be installed before we leave.  Perhaps it will be,  and perhaps not, but it will be what it will be.  Eventually we will get to use the room........

Retired Rod