I've also got a 1998 Aprilia Pegaso 650. I took it on a long trip to Lithuania in spring, and well, it hasn't been the same since. I started getting a little misfiring and loss of power on the way back, but when I got close to home, it was so bad I was afraid I wasn't going to make it.
I've had tons of various theories about what happened from carburation to electrical, but after troubleshooting everything, it comes down to compression.
So I got myself a compression tester. Ugh, this thing is so dirty and covered in oil.
Ok, well that is somewhat better
It's a 650cc single, so to do the compression test, I warmed up the engine and took the valve cover off so I could tape shut the decompressor on the end of the exhaust camshaft. Here we can see the compression tester screwed into the spark plug hole.
And here is the reading. Yeah. It's either dead or dying. 7 bar is too low.
For a while, Aprilia was making a bike for BMW, the F 650, with essentially the same Rotax engine. There is a great forum for the BMWs. Got some information about compression testing this engine and interpreting the results here.
Key is:
- A new engine should have something between 10-12 bars. After a while this reduces to 8-10 bars. Service is needed when it drops below 7, but you'll recognize that because the engine won't run correctly (no power).
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