Steve's Benelli BJ250T-8 Scooter

[Steve_Halt]

prince666, yeah well - nothing major in fact, yet all the Chinese bikes I have ridden (except JiaLing 250 that is) had minor problems that could have been easily avoided with better QC and +0.01 yuan spares.
I believe that now is the global market sifting process - some Chinese brands build up, some are dying out.

My prediction:
In 2-3 years CFMoto will start selling their bikes in the US big time, and, with appropriate after-sales and aftermarket parts, they will make it.

Benelli makes good-looking bikes, but with the decentralized marketing they do the brand image is just getting nowhere. Either they pull their act together or they will wind up a Chinese curiosity.

JiaLing, Loncin and Shineray need rebranding real fast. Their bikes are OK and can be fixed with insulation tape and pliers. Problem is: nobody in the West want to have a bike with a name that sounds that weird.

[Steve_Halt]

I am writing this with a hope that whoever wants to buy themselves a Benelli Silverblade (Zafferano) 250 bumps upon my blog and decides against it.
About a week ago there appeared a strange low frequency vibration between 35 and 40 km/h, at about 3000-4000 rpm. The mechanic said it was all because my read brake pads were worn out and were eating at my rear brake disk (which indeed they were, only after 5000 km or so). When I was taking the disc off, I found that out of 5 screws 3 were on Loctite (or something similar); 2 out of five were different length; 2 had different screw caps; and one was so badly damaged that we needed a chisel to remove it. Says a lot about the assembly quality.
Yesterday I replaced the disc and the brake pads; the vibration didn’t go anywhere. Should be some other cause - probably engine mounts. Will check them today and see if there’s anything wrong with them.

Another thing we did yesterday was front shocks. It’s been for a month or so that when turning at low speeds, the front of the bike developed a dangerous wobble and the bike got unstable. Baidu-ing and a service manual revealed that each fork leg should have 270ml of 10W fork oil. When we opened the forks, neither of them had that much. In fact, they were pretty much dry. After we carefully measured and added 270ml oil into each fork and assembled the bike, the problem was gone and now the front end feels firmly planted. Says a lot about quality control as well.

Alright, then there’s the third thing - oil dripping from the air filter. I know the cause of that is too much oil added when changing oil, yet I added 1200ml of oil in the last oil change (and I measured that myself), and there was no oil leak for about 2000km or so after I changed the oil. It developed suddenly out of nowhere.
From what I was able to google, baidu and yandex yesterday there may be a set of reasons for it besides the excessive amount of oil.
1. Head gasket - happens if the head has not been properly torqued. Solution - torque the head properly.
2. Valve clearances - happens if the valves have not been properly adjusted; also causes loss of power and blue smoke out of the exhaust. If I get it right, the valve service interval on this scoot is about 8000 km. It’s not remotely there yet. Nonetheless, I will do the valve clearances today (inlet 0.06-0.07; outlet 0.08-0.09) and see if it solves anything.
3. Piston rings - happens if the break-in was not properly done or if the engine was badly serviced or ridden carelessly. Well, I did the break-in according to the manual, and never rode the scoot above 100 km/h (which was on 2 or 3 occasions). Most of the riding was start-stop city traffic with average speeds of about 30 km/h or so. If that is piston rings, and I need to rebuild the engine after doing as little as 5000 km, then it is self-explanatory that this bike is trash.

On the side-note, I tried to google / baidu out where the engines for those Silverblades come from, and as far as I got it, they aren’t built by Benelli per se. Instead, they are outsourced to some shady third-party factory, which ships them over to Benelli.
The feeling I have now is that this particular bike is a collection of 山寨 parts from no-name factories built at a price point of 6000 yuan tops and sold to me for 18K.
Cheated? For sure.

[prince666]

Hi Steve
Looks like you are having some bad shit with your bike .

A big report to confirm what most people know already.

Must say I have had far less bad experiences with my CF Jetlux then what you are having with your bike and only cost abit more to buy !!! (Over 14.000 Km )
Wish you luck and hope you can fix the turd .
P.S. With the Wobble at low speed turns check the head bearing !

[Steve_Halt]

Hi Steve
Looks like you are having some bad shit with your bike .

A big report to confirm what most people know already.

Must say I have had far less bad experiences with my CF Jetlux then what you are having with your bike and only cost abit more to buy !!! (Over 14.000 Km )
Wish you luck and hope you can fix the turd .
P.S. With the Wobble at low speed turns check the head bearing !

I definitely will check the head bearing - yet I am so reluctant to disassemble half the bike to just get there!!! This bike is a torture to service.
I will still hold onto it and do all the mechanical stuff, the reason for it just me being curious. Will give me a certain amount of experience as well I suppose, since I never worked on maxi scooters before.
And then I'll sell it and get me a Majesty or something similar.

[prince666]

Hi Steve
You can check to see if the head bearing is loose by putting the bike on the centre stand with the front wheel not touching the ground !
Then turn the front wheel left or right and see if it hits the wheel stop and bounces back !!( whit no hands on the bars ) If it does this then the front head bearing is to loose !
It should be abel to swing and drop freely and when it hits the stops should just stop there with no Bounceback !!
Well that's my understanding on this matter .

Hope this helps

[Steve_Halt]

Hi Steve
You can check to see if the head bearing is loose by putting the bike on the centre stand with the front wheel not touching the ground !
Then turn the front wheel left or right and see if it hits the wheel stop and bounces back !!( whit no hands on the bars ) If it does this then the front head bearing is to loose !
It should be abel to swing and drop freely and when it hits the stops should just stop there with no Bounceback !!
Well that's my understanding on this matter .

Hope this helps

Thank you! It is indeed helpful, since I can check it easily :) I'll do it at the mechanic's tonight since I'll be there anyways.

[Zorge]

Alright, then there’s the third thing - oil dripping from the air filter. I know the cause of that is too much oil added when changing oil, yet I added 1200ml of oil in the last oil change (and I measured that myself), and there was no oil leak for about 2000km or so after I changed the oil. It developed suddenly out of nowhere.

Maybe your scooter is eco-friendly and crankcase ventilation hose is connnected to airbox, so excess of oil, through that hose, end in airbox. Oil catch can could be good solution for your problem.

All the rest reasons you mentioned: not properly torqued head, incorrect valve clearances, killed piston rings... In my book, those have different symptoms, but not greasy airbox and air filter.

[prince666]

I was thinking the same Zorge because my Jetlux has the same set up with the engine breather pipe discharges into the airbox and at the bottom of the air box is a tube that only after a hard ride I get some very small drops of oil !

[Zorge]

Thank you! It is indeed helpful, since I can check it easily :) I'll do it at the mechanic's tonight since I'll be there anyways.

Или, способ Но.2 - наехать на поребрик с скоростью километров 50. Если стукнет - люфта есть.

Серезно, хватит пару метров по булыжнике что б' "услышил" состояние подшипников рулевой колонки.

[Steve_Halt]

Zorge it is indeed eco-friendly, and the breather hose goes into the air filter. It's just that it never happened before, so I'm pretty worried here.
As for the neck bearings, I'll surely try it, why the hell not :) After all Nanjing roads aren't that smooth

prince666 see, you have probably a couple of drops of oil in it after a hard ride, not a goddamn fountain...

Besides, there's a more annoying thing - that vibration I wrote about earlier. I have no idea if that is somehow connected with the breather tube / head / valves or whatever; or if it's a completely independent problem. Like I said, I'll check the engine mounts tonight and see if they are to blame.