New Front Tire and Shocks
Right. So after I cut my front tire up on something that resembled a paper knife blade which someone accidentally left in the middle of the road, I had to buy a new front tire from taobao.
Together with that I got me a pair of stock shocks to replace the old non-working ones and a USB charger. I took the bike to the mechanic yesterday, and I'm (hopefully) picking it up tonight. Will post on the results.
2 Attachment(s)
Shock Absorber Mounting Points
Below are the pictures of the shock absorbers' bottom mount points:
Attachment 18644
Attachment 18645
As we can see, there are two more holes that look like they could be the mount points for the shock absorbers. I somehow think that if I move the shocks forward a bit, the compression geometry would greatly improve.
I think I may try it when I got enough spare time to. The only consideration I have is that on the right side the holes aren't really in line with the original mounting point (they are a bit recessed).
Anyways, if that doesn't work, I wonder what those are for at all!
Update: So those mounts aren't for the shocks. As it turned out, those were for the pre-production disc brake setup. One of the prototypes had rear disc brake on the right side of the rear console, not on the left one. So once the brake caliper was relocated, the mounting points remained on the console for whatever reason.
Jetmax Comfort and Long Rides
So I've been riding quite a lot these days and went to quite a few places around Nanjing.
My impressions are as follows:
1. The scooter is much more suited to an open road than it is to city riding. Weather protection and wind buffeting are great. When it may feel a bit heavy and hard to maneuver in the city, long-distance riding is not a problem.
2. The scooter is comfortable on good roads. Suspension works fine and the seating position is just great. Doing 2 hours non-stop isn't a problem. Your arms, shoulders, butt and neck feel good snd I think I could've ridden for a much longer time. Still on bad roads with irregular bumps the suspension is a nightmare.
3. Engine is great. There is a noticeable clutch/transmission engagement lag between 50 and 60 km/h, but besides that it pulls good. It never overheated, even though when I crawled through the city it was 30 km/h in stop'n'go traffic in 32 degrees Centigrade.
4. The brakes could be better hands down. When they heat up, the feedback is very spongy and it takes a heavy scooter quite a lot of road space to come to a stop. ABS would be a welcome addition, but alas, we have none and it's not even an option.
On a side note, if anyone is reading this, I have a question: Has CFMoto stopped scooter manufacturing? Jetlux and Jetmax aren't on the website any more and the shops in Nanjing don't have them either, so apparently, there's no supply.
Some More Parts Installed
Hello my nonexistent readers, yesterday I had a few more parts installed on the scoot.
1. Front shocks - I had 270 ml of 10W fork oil added in each (actually I have no idea how much oil there should be exactly, but I found this amount for Benelli BJ 250 scoot, and, since the scoots are more or less the same... Looking for specific info on CFMoto Jetmax is a waste of time - looks like they're never taken apart, or, if they are, no measurements are taken).
The result is great. Better than I expected, actually. The scooter floats no more and goes exactly where you point it. When we opened the shocks, each of them had about 70ml of old dirty oil.
The fork oil seals were replaced too.
2. Rear shocks - I had yet another pair of shocks from Taobao (just search for 川南本田弯刀cfmoto春风摩托车捷马250-6改装后减震/孔距315mm) - they work much better than the original ones (both adjustable and non-adjustable original CFMoto rear shocks are crap, since they don't absorb the shocks).
On a side note, these shocks are quite a bit longer than the original ones, but it hasn't told on the scooter handling anyhow so far. Probably they will sag a bit in a year or so. Took a pillion - pillion said it was much better than before.
Re: Some More Parts Installed
Replaced the rear tire with a new stock one, now the bike is firmly planted.
Installed Dr. Pulley weights (21 x 17) - I can't really say that there is any difference in pick up. Seems that the clutch started to engage at lower rpms, but, since the scoot doesn't have a tacho, I can't be 100% sure.
Front right windshield fixture (bolt/thread) has broken thread, the bolt just slid in. It cause the windshield to vibrate and make this annoying sound. Fixed it with another nut there. That was a pain in the ass to get right.
Overall on the quality of the metal used in the scoot - it feels like the scoot is made of plasticine. You disassemble it, you assemble it, you disassemble it again, be prepared for worn threads and tons of headache. Chinese green screws aren't up to the task either...
Dr. Pulley Weights for Jetmax
So these are my impressions of the scoot's performance after I installed Dr. Pulley slider weights:
1. Now I have a feeling that the scooter has a well-distributed torque over the rev range. The flat spot at around 60 km/h is gone, and the scooter picks up speed progressively and predictably (albeit yet pretty slowly).
2. The clutch engaging at lower RPMs isn't all that good, since now when I have the scooter on the center stand and fire it up for a warm up, I can see the rear wheel spinning at idle RPMs. That is dangerous indeed, and I can't say I like having this happen.
3. At traffic lights the aforementioned problem persists, and the scooter would try to launch itself forward at idle RPMs. That is annoying.
I think I'll be switching to the original roller weights in the near future.