Aprilia SR50 stalls when idling?

Hello everyone,

First of all: I have little experience when it comes to tinkering with scooters and so I ask you to be a little merciful when you ask questions.

I have an old (1998) 2-stroke Aprilia SR 50 with a Minarelli engine. Until recently, I had to give it a few minutes to warm up, but after that, it had no problems while riding. It sometimes took a few tries to get it to idle, but after a handful of attempts, it always held up pretty reliably.

Now, it rained a few days ago, and it was standing outside in the rain. Since then, it just won't stay running. It starts for a brief moment, but then dies again. Sometimes it manages to stay running for a little while at idle, but as soon as I give it some gas, it dies again.

It's important to note that yesterday, after about 30 minutes of fiddling with the kickstarter, I managed to get it running. It held up, and I was able to ride it. After a bit of a longer ride, it eventually responded immediately to the accelerator and then ran smoothly.

Yesterday, I thought it would run like before, but it's doing exactly the same thing as it did the days before. I even put it in the garage yesterday instead of leaving it outside, but it still just won't start. I'm pretty sure now that if I keep fiddling with the kickstarter, it'll eventually stop, but that's absolutely not acceptable in the long run.

What could be the reason for this?

Thanks in advance!