Gas smell, Poor MPG but no drips

Deanrank · Post by **Deanrank** » Tue Jun 05, 2012 6:17 am

Hello All,
I have a 2006 Buddy 125 that I "inherited". I just started riding it and I notice a gas smell while it's parked. There are absolutely no drips on the ground and the only other symptom is that it will stall occasionally when I decelerate.
I had a tune-up last July including a new petcock. I wanted to post here before I start taking it apart to see if anyone has ever had the same prob.
Thanks in advance!

heyitsomid · Post by **heyitsomid** » Tue Jun 05, 2012 6:23 am

I had a similar issue with my scooter. It would make my garage smell like fuel. After one of my longer rides it started leaking in the parking lot of a strip mall. I thought the petcock had loosened but the mechanic told me the leak was from the joint where the petcock attaches to the tank, some kinda microcrack or something. Its a pretty fragile piece of metal and as such will tend to cracking and splits as a result of normal vibration and probably due to the petcock replacement you had. That being said I had them put in a new tank and do some other work while it was there. It ended up costing more than I had planned though and if I was to do it again I would probably have smeared some Weld-On at the joint and let it set properly. Would have cost a whole lot less and maybe have been a more effective fix.

Deanrank · Post by **Deanrank** » Tue Jun 05, 2012 6:36 pm

Thanks for the reply, I'll check that out.

SYMbionic Duo · Post by **SYMbionic Duo** » Tue Jun 05, 2012 7:41 pm

Check your carb.

I bought an old Honda Elite and it had a gas smell but no stains under the bike. Turned out that the float bowl gasket was torn, and was allowing a small amount of gas out, which would then vaporize due to the heat of the engine.

Post by **ericalm** » Wed Jun 06, 2012 4:29 am

Quite possibly an evap system related problem if you're stalling when decelerating.

First, don't overfill the tank or top it off. Leave 2-3 inches at the top when you fuel up.

The gas is probably backing up (or has) into the charcoal canister and is dripping out, possibly onto the exhaust. You can disconnect it, check the canister for gas, dry it out and reconnect.

michelle_7728 · Post by **michelle_7728** » Wed Jun 06, 2012 4:29 am

Has it been doing this for a while, or did it just start doing that after you filled it up last? What I'm wondering is if you over filled it (or borderline overfilled it) and it got hot outside so the gas expanded. If your scooter has a little lip inside where you gas up (a couple of inches down), you don't want to fill beyond the lip.

Also sometimes vapor lock happens (you'll find plenty of references to vapor lock in the threads), and you'll want to vent your gas cap if you don't already have a vented gas cap.