Fuel Puddle????

[Anonymous]

This was weird... Went for a ride last Saturday afternoon and filled up with gas before parking for the evening. Sunday morning I go into the garage and there is a puddle of gas under the bike. It looks like it came out of the far right cylinder where the header meets the exhaust port, the fuel ran down the pipe and onto the floor.

I roll the bike out into the driveway and check all of the fuel line fittings and petcock valve. All were dry and tight. I hit the start button, it labored but fired and blew out smoke on the right side. I cleaned up the mess and put the bike back in the garage. Checking later in the day everything was dry, it fired right up again and seems to run fine, no smoke, I did not get a chance to ride it though.

Any thoughts??

[Anonymous]

Okay.... I'm an idiot.

After I wrote this a light bulb appeared over my head. BING....

I just went to the garage and checked, sure enough I left the petcock on Prime.

Any thoughts on potential damage to the engine or carbs???

Thanks again.

[KEITH KRAUSE]

Take off the oil cap and smell for gas. If any doubt, change the oil.

[Anonymous]

Mine used to leak on prime too and it didn't cause any damage, just the unsafe inconvenience of gas not where it's supposed to be. I have heard that it can lead to fuel mixing with oil in the crankcase but I didn't experience that.

Cleaning and rebuilding my carbs recently eliminated the problem entirely, it doesn't leak now even if I forget to turn off the tap.

[Anonymous]

As Keith said, check the oil. I did that a couple of weeks ago and some gas leaked into the oil. Felt like an idiot for leaving it on prime

[SqDancerLynn1]

What's going on I did that too. Turned it to prime instead of reserve & forgot to change it after filling up.. So I changed the oil just to make sure.
It is less likley to do it when on the centerstand