Last weekend I got some time to work on a few scooters that had found their way to my garage. First up is the PX150 that is the daily ride of Steve, one of the Scooterlounge backbone support team. It seems that something strange had happened, and although the motor would start and it would go through the gears, the scooter would not move. Steve suspected that something in the clutch had given out. Time to find out...
When I got it up on the lift, I pulled off the rear wheel to get access to the clutch. It was then that I realized that the rear hub spun even when the transmission was engaged. That was strange. Then I noticed that the rear hub nut appeared to be loose. When I pulled the rear hub off, I found the problem. The hub had worked its way loose, and had some play on the rear axle. Over time, the axle splines had worn down the splines on the hub. It is hard to see in this photo, but the inner splines on the hub were essentially smooth. So the axle would rotate, but the rear hub was not moving at all. The spines on the axle had gotten worn as well, but they looked good enough. I hoped that a new hub with fresh splines would get the scooter back on the road without having to replace the rear axle.
I got a fresh hub from Scooter Mercato, and slapped it on. Luckily, after I had it all buttoned up, the scooter worked fine. Problem solved! I did a few other things to the scooter while it was up on the lift. New tires were the most significant. I sure like Michelin S1's. All the cables are adjusted, and she is ready to roll. Steve mentioned some electrical gremlins in the headset, so I'll attend to those later this week. After that, look out for this scooter on the streets of San Francisco!