Zenoah 32cc stopped working

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Roni92

Roni92

Well-Known Member
Messages
63
Hi, so long story short, its winter and after about 1 year of not driving my rovan lt (i left it with carb dry and oiled engine). It started pretty easyily, no tuning or nothing, just some flamable spray into intake and she goes like new. Drive like that for some time, engine works perfectly, smokesl ike it should, very nice low idle, no issues.
Then next day i try to start and it start to break pullstarts like crazy... Im thinking its old cord and its cold, that must be it(its around 0*C so nothing major)...
Replaced ppullstart cord with some very strong one, and im pulling. But something feels off, the resistance of the engine is much bigger than normally, so it turns out it wasnt cord fault.....
So anyway im trying to start changing all variables i know - resetting carb, checking plug, choke on choke off, but at the beginning at least it coughed from time to time, but with time absoluutelyl nothing. last resort, i take intake filter off and spray some flammable stuff into it while pulling, nothing. Glow plug is wet, fuel is dripping a little out of intake, but nothing major i think its normal.
I don't think its flooding, it always provided lot of fuel and normally plug was wet like that and started and ran perfectly. Compression seems fine, actually it seems more than usual, because like i said i can barely pull it so make 2 rotations, usually only one "cycle" and it locks up from engine resistance, hands hurts from pulling half day. In the end i gave up.
Theres strong spark, theres air, theres lot of fuel, and nothing. First time i have problem with zenoah. And the strangest thing is i didnt change anything between those rans.
One day it rans perfeclty and the next day its like dead, and too much resistance from engine. I reaaaly hope engine is not shot :/ again, it ran perfectly yeasterday, and was turn off with remote kill switch, nothing special happened. Please help ;
also carb is original walbro 668, also never had problem with it, reacts very well to tuning
 
With the plug out you should be able to spun it very easy. Maybe the coil moved out of place and is rubbing, or some kind of debris got into the fan housing and is binding up the free spinning, worst case the cylinder may be scratched up making it hard for the piston to slide. Time to start doing some dismantling to see what's going on
 
thanks for reply. Now Im thinking i overlooked few more possibilities - spark plug - even though spark is visible, maybe its too weak or something.
Coil out of place also sounds sensible, its like timing is wrong its like it try to work in the other direction, thus causing very strong pulls on pull cord one time it pulled it out of my hand violently. it literally hurts to try to start it now...
Scratched cylinder would be nightmare scenario, but it would show day earlier, no? Why on next day it would just not start when yday was perfect until end of run :/
Also how would engine behave if fuel was without oil? Im 99% sure that fuel was with oil but im also thinkin what if not.... would that cause too much internal friction ? But that still doesn't explain those strange impulses through pull start?
Anyway, will try change plug tomorrow and check coil, if its not that then im fiddlesticked, im not gonna dismantle engine thats out of my league knowlede and im sure those bolts and extremely hard to unscrew and i already know how that would end 😂 And i cant afford new cylinder anyway so if its that then im screwed anyway
 
For sure, if it spins easy with plug out your in the clear and it may havevgot a little filled up with gas in the base, just pull several times choke open and throttle full open if you see drops of gas coming out the open plug hole
 
hey, so I got this cm5h spare plug, that do me any good?
Attaching photos of current plug, after seating with no use for two days, no pulling starter.
By dimensions it's all same
IMG_20240112_153808.jpg
IMG_20240112_154013.jpg
 
Aight good to know, that can damage engine or smth? If it's too hot.
Anyway looks like I won't escape making order from rovan Netherlands(expensive shipping 20€).
It's only shop well stocked for petrols in Europe.
Good thing is with new plug engine talked and even ran for minute or so, but something disconnected and kill switch killed engine with broken pullstart so that's all action I got.
So at least I know engine is not shot.
But it still breaks pull starts like crazy. Broken own zenoah one like 30times trying to start engine again and broke also one I sourced from baja. Im so fuckin tired of this piece of poop.
I spent like 12h in two days just taking out pullstart, fixing it and putting it on car again.
Did it so many times it's done for good now.
Still don't know why engine is so hard to start, choke doesn't matter much it seems. But when it started it ran fine as far as i can tell, obviously i was caution with throttle as it was very cold.
I know it tries to start because with slow pulling it is doing single 'pops' but every time when it's about to start and I pull quickly it destroys pullstart...
I'm thinking buying rovan easy start cuz that direct connection pullstart have no place on this engine. Can anyone recommend it? Or is it unreliable

such as this one
https://www.rovansports.nl/en/rovan-pull-starter-easily-starting.html
 
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I done away with that type of starter an bought the easy spin start one!
The easy spin one changes the starting paws to the crank shaft rather them being built
into the pull starter itself!

1705105780601.png
 
Part from rovan came and she runs again, yay!
Did a lot of work on her in last week.
Made sure everything is tight and seals properly, that includes exhaust, basically big winter service.
The easy start from rovan is amazing now when my zenoah is "stubborn" with it's crazy compression it works against her 😂 cuz spring loads with pull against compression and then suddenly rotate crank with all that cumulated force when she gives in. my hands are super relieved.
cleaned carb, set to factory default (,1107 carb) and she purred almost immediately, like the first time I started her 🥰.
in this cold those carb settings felt on point, actually engine felt super strong and free revving, superb throttle response.
Absolutely no issues, not single bog even when cold, and very good, low temperatures, got it to around 90*c on cylinder but almost immediately drops to like 70 when idling, super cool.
Posting new plug after about 10mins drive, looks good right? Not too lean

Screenshot_2024-01-23-02-44-02-817_com.miui.gallery.jpg

IMG_20240122_224018.jpg

IMG_20240122_170430.jpg

IMG_20240122_235447.jpg
 
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