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Post by bigbottom on May 23, 2009 17:14:51 GMT -5
I've got 350 miles on my Roketa MC-54 250B and I've developed a coolant leak. It's coming from the bolts holding the pipe from the water pump onto the manifold around the cylinder. Is there a gasket or something for those bolts that could be easily replaced? I've noticed the O rings on other parts of the engine are pretty cheap when I adjusted the valves, so it wouldn't shock me if the seal on the pipe is just bad. But I thought I'd ask the experts before removing those two bolts and looking at what might be wrong. Thanks!
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Post by rusty on May 23, 2009 17:38:34 GMT -5
If you are talking about the two bolts that holds the water pump on, no there is nithing there, The water pump has an o-ring on that seals when its in the engine, also the line going into the water pump has an o-ring on it too, You can pull the pump and use son RTV sealant on them to stop the leaking, thats what I do to all of those type seals, or if you dont want to do that gust put some grease on them and reinstall the part, it may or may not fix your leak. Alosd make sure that its not leaking out the weep hole on your water pump, if thats where its leaking you have a bad internial seal and you need to get that fixed ASAP. I just lost three head gaskets befor i found out it was a bad water pump
Rusty
PS You can read about it on my post .050 over bore
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Post by bigbottom on May 23, 2009 18:42:27 GMT -5
It's not leaking from the water pump. It's leaking from the manifold. Right at the two bolts that hold the pipe coming from the water pump to the manifold. We took the two bolts out, but the pipe won't budge as it's solidly attached to the water pump. We tried taking the water pump off but only half of it comes of. The half that the pipe is attached to appears to be part of the engine, so we have no idea how to take the pipe off to determine why it's leaking.
P.S. A bone to rusty for replying.
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Post by bigbottom on May 23, 2009 19:39:09 GMT -5
Here is a picture of where the coolant leak is:  The leak is occuring at the top of the black pipe. We removed the two screws from the pipe, but the pipe won't budge because it's secure in the water pump to the right. Only the front half of the water pump comes off as you can see in the picture. So we don't know how to get the black pipe out of the water pump so that we can take the pipe off the manifold and find the reason why it is leaking. |
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Post by rusty on May 23, 2009 20:06:36 GMT -5
The pipe is just stuck in the water pump with the sealent they put on them, the water pump just has two bolts that holds it on. ,there is one on each side of the pump you just took off the impellar cover, then the pump will slide off with a little pressure, if you have the pipe disconected from the top it should come with the pump, if not it will slide out of the water pump. the pipe attaches to the cylinder, it shouldnt need to come lose from the cylinder unless its leaking at the cylinder, if its leaking at the water pump remove the water pump and check the o-ring on the pipe and besure to use some RTV when you put it back together
Thanks for the bone
Rusty
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Post by bigbottom on May 23, 2009 20:22:26 GMT -5
It's leaking at the cylinder. Is that repairable?
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Post by rusty on May 23, 2009 20:53:06 GMT -5
yes. I think its just a gasket on the cylinder, either way if its not cracked you should be able to put some gasket sealer on it after you remove the pipe to see whats leaking, just a bad gasket or a crack, hope for a bad gasket
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Post by bigbottom on May 23, 2009 21:50:38 GMT -5
Okay, after a bit of effor I got the rest of the fuel pump off. The pipe came with it, and it's in there pretty solid, so I don't think I'll have to do anything to keep it sealed when I put it back together. Now we got to look at the source of the problem. He is where the water pipe attached to the cylinder:  No gasket there. No O-ring. Must be on the pipe, right? Here is shot of the pipe attached to the water pump:  No gasket there either. No O-ring there either. It looks like it's shaped for some type of seal to be there, but it just empty. So should something have been there? Or did the factory forget to install something? Looks like the Kool Aid coolant that the factory put in (I like to call it Kool Ant) caused some rust. I replaced it with Honda antifreeze at about 50 miles, but the bike was manufactured in July 2008 and I didn't receive it until a few weeks ago. So if there was moisture there after being run at the factory, then it sat there for nearly 10 months before I received it. What's the best plan of action to clean up this mess? Do I sand off the rust? After getting rid of the rust, should I put anything on the exposed metal? Should I get a gasket or 0-ring for the fitting? Is it supposed to fit without a gasket or O-ring (which means the factory got it right)? If the factory got it right, how come I didn't find anyone else on this site experience this problem before me? This site is awesome by the way. Thanks for the help rusty. More bones for you!!! |
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Post by csgary on May 24, 2009 1:31:06 GMT -5
Mine had a leak in the same location. You are missing an o-ring. However, the metal is really prone to rusting, caused by the crap coolant they put in at the factory. Once there is some amount of rust in there, the o-ring is not going to seal it very well either. I cleaned up the surface by sanding it and also put gasket maker stuff next to the o-ring on the outside of it to get more of a seal going. As long as you use real anti-freeze coolant it should not rust again. It has been holding up fine for almost a year now.
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Post by bigbottom on May 24, 2009 22:44:32 GMT -5
So far so good on the repair. I put a good amount ot RTV in the ring where the O-ring is supposed to sit, as well as around the screw holes and entire edge of the connection. Sanded down the rust on the cylinder with soft sand paper and attached the water pump back on (also put a little RTV on the water pump as their must have been some on it from the factory which made it so hard to get the water pump off). No leaks to be found.
However it took hours to burp the coolant system after putting the Honda anti-freeze in. Was quite frustrating as the engine would get hot, yet the coolant was completely cool. There had to have been a pocket of air that just wouldn't come out. After a few hours of revving the engine and giving it 15-20 minutes to cool down before the next rev, it finally burped out the last amount of air. I plan on putting some miles on it tomorrow.
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Post by unaggie on May 26, 2009 9:25:13 GMT -5
Good job with the repair. Take a little coolant with you on your trip and add as needed. Seems like it took mine several trips to finally get full but it hasn't needed a drop in the past year.
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Post by bigbottom on Sept 6, 2009 16:03:37 GMT -5
Well.... after 2,200 miles the fix for my missing O-ring sprung it's own leak. The RTV solution held up pretty well given some of the trips I took (Columbus to Cincinnati and back twice. Columbus to Indianapolis and back. Columbus to Dayton and back). But now it's leaking again.
I just put in a $15 order with Roketa.com ($5 for the O-ring, plus $10 shipping). Praying that the right part comes in (if anything at all comes).
And if any of you parts sellers have one and would like to sell it to me, send me a PM. Thanks!
Other than receiving a scooter with a missing O-ring in the water pipe, I've loved my purchase of this scooter!!!
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Post by DaveR on Sept 6, 2009 21:33:12 GMT -5
Big,
Clean that pipe up really well on a wire wheel, and then stop by any Napa store (or whatever is close) and have them size up an o-ring for it.. gonna cost you about $1.00, and be a good US quality.. 99% of all parts stores in the US will have one..
Good luck, and happy scooting.. Dave
PS: orig o-ring prob wasn't missing, just melted away.. Cheap China rubber does that, I learned this first hand, and the hard way..
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Post by bigbottom on Sept 18, 2009 17:36:11 GMT -5
My O-ring from Roketa arrived this past Tuesday (YEAH!). Looks like it might be the right size (prays). Now I just need time to get it done. Will probably be an all day project as the coolant will drain when I take the pipe off leaving an air pocket in the coolant system. Took me hours to burp the darn thing last time.
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Post by bigbottom on Sept 20, 2009 15:39:57 GMT -5
Went to put the O-ring on today... wrong size. The O-ring Roketa sent me is probably for a 244cc CF-MOTO clone engine, not the 257cc Linhai clone engine that I have. Took the pipe to Autozone and not only did they have an O-ring in stock that fit, they gave it to me for free. So thumbs up to Autozone!!!
So I put the O-ring on, attach the back half of the water pump back on, and now I'm all set to put the front half of the water pump on. Since the gasket between the two halves of the water pump wasn't looking to good the last time I took it apart, I went ahead and ordered a gasket from partsforscooters.com. So I take it out, and low and behold, it's the wrong part too. It's a water pump gasket, but I suspect its for a CF-MOTO engine as well as it's shaped slightly different, enough that the screw holes don't line up at all.
So I use the old gasket and as I'm slowly adding coolant before even starting the engine, it begins leaking out between the two halves of the water pump. So the gasket is shot, and even though I proactively ordered a replacement I have none.
So this is now three parts for this scooter that I've ordered and every single one of them has been the wrong part. If I could just get the right parts for this thing it would be an awesome scooter, but the fact that I keep spending money on wrong parts it's becoming a bigger hassel than it's worth.
I've heard that making a gasket isn't hard to do, but I've never done it. Anyone got any tips for making a gasket so I can at least get the thing working so I can potentially sell it? I'd gladly keep it if I could get parts for it, but after 3 failed attempts on three different parts I think I'm done trying.
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Post by joey on Sept 21, 2009 14:55:59 GMT -5
take the pump hose to napa or autozone the o ring should fit tight to the inside hole and stick up a little . so when you tighten it up it will swell to seal the hole. clean the area well so there is not any rust! or o ring will leak. buy a good oring cheap ones bust easy. saves time and money.
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Post by csgary on Sept 25, 2009 10:53:53 GMT -5
Just go to Harbor Freight Tools and get their o-ring set. It is $10 or less depending on their sale prices and you get close to 400 o-rings plus a nice case. I get their 20% off coupon all the time too. You'll have all sorts of sizes and likely will be set for life. That's what I did for a hot tub, and since then I used two o-rings on chinese engines with great success. BTW. chinese o-rings do melt, but not on water cooled engines. And even on air cooled engines only after aggressive abuse. I have a 110cc quad I got for $200 that some genious burned up the clutch in. After replacing the clutch and adjusting the valves, I discovered that the top valve cover o-ring was completely melted. HF to the rescue!
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