Hi

My wife is the proud owner of a 2001 LS650. We got it a few months ago with 17,000 miles on it. She sat on it once and instantly KNEW it was the bike for her.

I did the test ride and it was fine. After I bought it, my wife went for a ride and it stalled every time she came to a stop. Figures  

I found this forum and got to work searching. Fantastic site! I figured out it was the petcock so I went online and ordered a Raptor.

Meanwhile, we set the petcock to prime and everything was fine... my wife absolutely LOVES this bike... until one morning she told me there was gas under the bike. She stopped riding at that point. Bike was getting hard to start. Raptor hadn't arrived yet.

I ordered a bunch of stuff, intending to do the full overhaul on this bike and make most of the mods recommended here. Again, you guys are great!

Parts arrived and I got to work:
-Raptor petcock (yes I plugged the vacuum port on the other side of the carb... I followed instructions from this forum)
-NGK iridium spark plug
-new oil filter / synthetic oil
-valve adjustment (just had to check - all were between .003 and .005)
-pulled carb completely out and apart - and it's pretty clean inside, just a teensy tiny amount of sediment at the bottom of the bowl (on the left side, where the bike leans on the stand)
-Dynojet stage 1 kit. Previous owner had already pulled the brass mix plug and had it around 3 turns out. I put it at 1.5 turns per the DynoJet instructions
-New crankcase breather tube (old one had a crack at cylinder end)
-Adjusted rear brake
-Stainless steel front brake line is here but waiting for pads to arrive so I can get the brakes out of the way all at once
-Got the red / high-temp sealant for the plug/cap thing - there's a fair amount of oil evident on the cylinder fins but then I was getting tired and wasn't sure if I had to pull the entire engine out and was anxious to get the bike running again (deal with the plug oil leak later)

Okay, back to the story. Got everything all put back together, filled up the gas and she fired right up. Took her for a run down the street and she felt better through the range (just up to about 35 mph) and idling was much better. The choke was actually useful (used to just make 'er die). Backfire is now more of a puff/fart at shutdown vs. a louder pop. Feeling pretty satisfied with myself  

I left the Raptor ON, not OFF (or FUEL, or whatever it is). Next morning, gas under the bike again.

AAAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGHHHHH!!!!!

Traced the line and it's leaking out of the airbox vent, which, apparently, is supposed to have a plug. Mine does NOT so it's not pooling in the airbox (it's pooling on the concrete floor). Interestingly, the manual shows TWO vents, but one of mine is plugged at the airbox. Don't know what that's about.

Seems the OEM petcock was bad AND I had another problem being masked by the bad petcock. Hoo boy.

Came back to the trusty Savage forums here and my best guess is the carb float and/or the needle valve. Found someone saying to test it by pulling the bowl and holding up the float with your finger while you turn the petcock ON...

Okay, easy enough... that was successful, meaning if I held the float up, no gas. Let it down and gas came pouring out (I had a rag in place to catch the gas).

Float/valve seem to be okay. Now as to whether the float is actually FLOATING, this I don't know. If the valve is working, how do I know if the float will float? It's not binding, it's light and floaty and no gas was leaking out of it and I couldn't find any holes in it.

So... how do I test to see if the float is floating and shutting off the valve? I can't very well stick a camera in there while it's sealed up  

Pointers/suggestions? Am I off base? Anything else to check?

Welcome Steve,
If you have a clogged vent, or a vent capped that shouldn't be, in some cases that can pressurize the bowl enough to spew gas to the airbox before the float valve can close.  That's how it is with the gs500 anyway, see this thread:
http://gstwins.com/gsboard/index.php?topic=33835.0

It might also be a bit of junk or dinged needle/seat that would cause a slow leak of the float valve that isn't apparent when you try it with the bowl off. Definitely take the needle out and blast the whole path out with carb cleaner.  A fuel filter would probably help this prob not come back if there's any junk in the tank.

I'm not talking about the carb vents. I know about the 2 carb vents - they vent up along the frame under the tank. They are, however, higher than the air intake to the carb. I suspect the fuel is rising into the body of the carb and draining back into the airbox before the fuel level gets high enough to spew out of the carb vents.

Alas, that would only change *where* the gas is leaking, not *that* the gas is leaking.

When I had the tank off, I did blow into them to make sure they were not obstructed.

I suppose I could put the bowl back on, take out the air filter, turn on the petcock, and watch to see if my suspicion is correct.

I agree that it could be the float valve, but the leak isn't slow... it's a steady drip-drip (2-3 drips per second) when it's leaking. I would notice that much leakage when I did the "push up the float" test. I guess I'm just trying to see what I can do without taking off the carb again.  

I did check the oil and I think it's good. Won't hurt to change it again, though. Reluctant to do so until I know I'm not going to risk dumping gas into it again.

After digging into this for the past couple of weeks, I'm considering the inline fuel filter... but definitely not a priority until I can figure out why I'm spilling gas on the garage floor.

 
Now Steve, this is very important ---- immediately go check to see if you got any gasoline into your sump.

Unscrew the oil cap and stick your nose up to it and sniff for gasoline odor.

Report what you smell and look for any increase in your oil volume to what it normally looks like.

Like we said, this is important so go do it now before you run the bike any at all.

Get back to us, OK?



(we is hoping he was lucky and his intake valves were closed tight at the point where his engine stopped)




On that test where you look for bubbles coming from your float bowl -- you start by putting your dry empty float in the freezer for a half hour, then going instantly into a bowl of pretty warm water for no longer than it takes to look good for bubbles.    

The cold air inside the float will expand (make positive pressure) and bubble some air out if there is a leak -- doing it this way no water gets into your float assembly as you will have positive pressure.

Do it temperature/expansion "backwards" can give you a problem as you can/will be sucking water into the float assembly instead of pushing air out.



Baking your water filled float at 200 degrees for hours to get the liquid water out of it is kinda an iffy proposition when your float is soldered brass or is made out of plastic .....  neither likes the baking action very much.


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When you pulled your carb all apart earlier, did you have any issues at all putting it all back together correctly?    

Even very small details (like where the hook part of the pull down spring for the fuel needle valve goes on the float lifter arm) are very very important for fuel shut off issues.

From what he says, he had all the potential for a sump dumper, but he didn't actually get unlucky on his intake valves being open.

whew !!!    that wuz close !!!




Ya DO gots a carb float / needle valve / mis-assembly issue of some flavor that I hope you can find and identify before it drives you crazy.

Do keep us posted up-to-date and appraised -- we is all rooting for you !!

Just replace the needle & seat. If the rubber tip of the needle has a wear mark line around it, you can get intermitent leaks because it won't always seal properly.

Maybe it's "reserve," not "prime." My point was that I wanted to make sure I was getting fuel to the carb and the lack of a leak wasn't just because my gas level was low.

I agree that while the bike is off, the "OFF" position on the Raptor will (and does) keep this from happening. But what if it happens at a long stop light and the bike stalls and my wife is 30 miles away from home? "OFF" is a band-aid, not a cure.

I'm going to spend some time today looking for a new needle/o-ring. If I'm going to take the carb apart anyway, if it's not highway robbery, I may as well swap out the needle and o-ring while I'm in there just so I KNOW that's not the issue. Are there kits for this? Anyone have a link handy? OEM is fine - this one lasted 10 years and 17,800 miles before it went out on me. It will take a looooong time for my wife to put that many miles on it.  

steve73 wrote on 10/13/11 at 22:33:52:


My Savage is also a 2001. What did you do to order your brake line? I looked on their site and the only line they had was for 86-98 model years.

Thanks.