Air Box, 2-stroke and Slipping Kickstart

Hello again, It has been quite a while since my last post, and in the mean time, a lot has happened. I went for a fifty km ride in September, and once I had finished I had more than Half my tank left over. Not bad for a 2,5 liter tank! I even took it over some dirt road, but I don't think it did my scooter any good...

Air-Box
I noticed that I did not have a hose connecting my carburetor to my air-box, which made my air-box useless. I removed the whole air-box, and put on a small air filter. I had actually bought the air filter too small, but with the help of a hot-air-gun I got it on tightly enough. I found that this made it somewhat slower, but I would rather lose 2km/h than have the engine get muck in it and seize up.

2stroke Oil
My oil tank was beyond repair, so I removed it because it was not serving a purpose. I now have to pre-mix my oil and petrol. For that I bought a 20liter jerry-can and used a 1:50 ratio. I have to stress how important it is to mix it in a container before pouring it into the gas tank! On one occasion I put the two-stroke straight into the gas tank, and it sunk to the bottom and blocked the petrol filter: I then had to push it from the petrol station! {( Remember to tie up the electrical cables to avoid getting them stuck in the wheel. )}

Kick-start Slip
At the moment I cannot get my scooter running because the kick-start slips every time I try and kick it. It is extremely frustrating and the more you try the more you will hurt your foot. I took apart the gear-box and found out that the cogs that get the first gear to start turning had been so badly worn down that there was no chance I was personally going to be able to fix it. So I took it to a local motorcycle mechanic, and he said that it was quite common among these types of motorcycles, and that he will do a small welding job on it.

My plan from now on is to get hold of an Owners Workshop Manual, probably off the web. I have seen some for sale on Amazon that are in fairly good condition. Once I have acquired this book, I will slowly start fixing what still needs to be fixed on the moped. I hope to get it into perfect running condition, so that I will be able to stop worrying about whether it will break down anytime soon.

What's what?!

So, what exactly is the point of this blog? Well is is basically a Yamaha Passola fan site. In the following posts I will post all types of things that have to do with this incredible noped. I will also predominantly focus on posting about my own scooter and what I am doing to restore it.

The Passola was introduced during the early 1980's. I recently bought one of these beautiful machines for the ridiculously low price of R800.00. I was actually looking to buy a Honda Express, but I couldn't get my hands on one. I am not disappointed though. What I stumbled upon was in fact a fantastic find. It is not in great condition but it runs, and it sure runs fast. On a straight road I got it up to 55km/h, and on a down-hill it reached 60km/h. Since then my housemate and I have fiddled with it a little and now it isn't reaching those speeds easily.

Here are some pictures I took of it after giving it a clean...