Modern Buddy

Hello All:
I just bought a Psycho from my brother in law who found it to be too small or him. It had 10 miles on the odometer this morning and now has 60 miles on it. I had a fun time drive around today.

He delivered it 23 miles from Philadelphia to NJ on a trailer tied down firmly. When we pulled it off of the trailer, gas was leaking from the rear left side of the scooter. It wasn't flowing but seemd to leak and pool during the ride and pour out when we moved it.

Any ideas where it came from and why?

Thanks!

How full was the tank when you moved the scooter? There are a couple different ways and places you can lose gas during transport.

Have you tried starting or running the scooter since hauling it?

Most likely is that gas got into the evap system and backed up into the air system, leaking out the air box. If you open the air box, you may find the filter saturated with gas. It can be cleaned and dried, or replaced.

There are other ways gas can lean when being hauled, but I'd start with the above—easiest to check and fix.

Have a look at this recent thread for some other possibilities:
topic22172.html

How full was the gas tank when it was being transported?

If the gas tank was full, the sloshing could have caused it to overflow. Also, if it was full, on a warm day the gas could have expanded...

It was pretty much full. Where would it have leaked from? The cap was on tight and didn't seem to be wet there.

If it was close to full, especially being filled almost to the tip-top where the cap attaches, bouncing about on the trailer most likely caused fuel to flow into the evap canister, which is connected by hoses near the top of the gas tank. Gas most likely sloshed in there. As this is connected via a maze of plumbing to the airbox, fuel could have ended up pooling in the air filter area on the left side.

Not a big worry under normal driving conditions, as long as you don't fill it all the way to the tip-top. For some reason, we see this more frequently as people trailer their scoots with a full tank. If you look in the tank, there's a second metal collar a couple of inches below the top, with a hole in it for the gas nozzle. Try to fuel up to that point, but not much higher, as the emissions stuff connects higher up.

Right. You don't want to trailer with a full tank.

All motor vehicles approved for sale in California (i.e., almost every motor vehicle in the country) are equipped with an evap system intended to recover and recirculate gas vapors rather than letting them escape into the air. This means that there are vents at the top of the tank connected to hoses leading back into the air system.

As well-intended as this may be, the design of the systems (mandated by CA) causes all kinds of issues with scooters and many motorcycles because of the positioning of the gas tanks. Overfilling the tank or putting the scooter in a position in which gas splashes around a lot can back up the gas. When riding this can cause vapor lock and stalling. When trailering, it can result in some leakage and spilling.