Introduction and new Skorpion Tour Owner

[Bluejay]

Hello folks! I am completely new to MZ; in fact, a week ago, I had never even heard of it. But a guy 2 hours from me listed one for sale and I couldn't resist. The sale included every manual known to exist for the Skorpion, as well as a carload of spare parts. Everything is stock on it (as far as I know) except the bar-end mirrors, which I've swapped out, as you can see in this pic. Now, here's where I need some help... The guy parked it 2 years ago, but when he did, he removed the tank and carbs, drained them, dried them out, and put them back on so he could store them in his house. So it's been in a heated house all this time, and the engine's so clean, you could eat off of it. It has 20,000 miles on it, but I believe this guy treated it properly. So I bought it without running it, brought it home, checked it over, put some gas in it, and got it to run. It does ok, I ride it around in the field behind the house, but after I've done a lap around our 3 acres, it stalls and won't start again until I let it sit for 20 minutes or so. We've been having some hot weather, so I suspected vaporlock, but the old gas cap trick made no difference, it seems to be breathing ok. I checked the petcock filter and it was pretty clean. I'd rather not pull the tank if I don't have to, and I REALLY don't want to have to pull the carbs. So I'm hoping someone here can give me some insight into the nature of the beast that might be an easy fix. Right now I'm running Seafoam through it as much as I can. It'll idle for quite awhile with no problem, but every time I get it out and ride it, it shuts down in short order. I can't take it out on the road until I have some reassurance that I'm not going to be sitting for 20 minutes along the berm while I wait for it to decide to run again.

[edfmaniac]

Could be the lean pilot jet that comes with these bikes. If you know where the mixture screw is on the left side carb, screw it in until it stops, counting the number of turns carefully. Don't over tighten, just until it starts to resist. It's probably somewhere between 2 and 4 turns out. Then open it about six turns and try running it again. If you want to be certain that it's not running out of threads, and about to fall out, you can unscrew it until it does fall out so you will know for sure how many turns you are working with. Always leave at least a turn and a half or two during running.

The best thing to do is just open it up and install the correct jet, but the mixture screw procedure should tell you if that's the cause of your problems or not.

And might as well put some leaner main jets in too. It needs them. ;

[Bluejay]

Well, I found the problem, and it is me. I thought I had put more than a gallon into it, but apparently not. The fix was simply switching to reserve. And then, of course, I filled the tank, once I realized it was running just fine. The previous owner had it dialed in pretty nicely; he even included a jetted car setup that he recommended only if I wanted to race. I've been riding it to work every day, just loving every minute on the road. Tomorrow I'll ride it in a rally parade with a couple thousand other bikes. I do enjoy being on something so unique.