Fuel leak

[Tysons87venture]

Stored bike for 3 weeks came back and found a decent puddle of fuel on floor, I had filled before storing and put 30 km on it, turned it on and was almost empty and put 12 litres in it/. There was not 12 litres on floor, could that much fuel have evaporated? any suggestions would be greatly appreciated, bikes running good and no signs of leak from ride just from sitting 

[Freebird]

Probably a stuck float.  Tap on fuel bowls will probably free it.  I would check the oil.  Probably full of gas. 

[Pasta Burner]

1 hour ago, Freebird said:

Probably a stuck float.  Tap on fuel bowls will probably free it.  I would check the oil.  Probably full of gas. 

By fuel bowel tap area are you referring to the diaphragm covers?  Still learning carbs here.

[Freebird]

No the bowls under the carbs. 

[uncledj]

Stuck float sounds reasonable to me, but would the fuel flow to the carbs without the pump running?

[larrydr]

You may want to pull your spark plugs to see if they running a nice toasty brown in color or a ugly  black color which would indicate over fueling ...About 8 years ago I had a problem where my plugs were running a ugly black color ...After changing the plugs I noticed that the choke was not shut off all the way .....I had been running for 2 hours with the choke on part of the way ....

[Marcarl]

A slow drip will evaporate quite quickly. If it's your 87, fuel will not flow without the pump running because the top of the tank is below the bottom of the carbs. So no need to worry about a stuck float for this reason, it may be stuck but would not have emptied the tank.

[Pasta Burner]

My 87 was leaking from the petcock gasket this past spring.

[Tysons87venture]

Thanks for all the info guys, I'm wondering if it's the fuel petcock myself, going to storage to look at again now, it did look like the vent overflow line was wet tho which is just in front of rear tire where leak is on ground

[Tysons87venture]

8 hours ago, Pasta Burner said:

My 87 was leaking from the petcock gasket this past spring.

Did you replace yourself? If so what was the difficulty like? Did you have to remove the tank completely?

[Tysons87venture]

It was indeed the petcock, dripping pretty good there, looks like 10 litres drained out and absorbed into the floor over 3 weeks, oil looked good, bike runs good, but gotta figure out how to replace this petcock now

[SpencerPJ]

Might be as simple as snugging 2 screws.  Take some tissue or lightweight paper, touch areas and determine where the wettness is coming from. Highest point usually is the problem point.

[Tysons87venture]

1 hour ago, SpencerPJ said:

Might be as simple as snugging 2 screws.  Take some tissue or lightweight paper, touch areas and determine where the wettness is coming from. Highest point usually is the problem point.

Thanks Spencer, I will try to tighten up the 2 screws. Do you use a stubby screw driver to get in there or a right angle bit? Seems like it will be tight to get a standard screw driver in there

[Pasta Burner]

3 hours ago, Tysons87venture said:

Did you replace yourself? If so what was the difficulty like? Did you have to remove the tank completely?

Yea I did it myself in a couple hours, I remember taking half a day off work because it was dripping in my garage and the wife was not too happy with the smell.  Our bedroom is above the garage.  Of course I had an almost full tank of gas 🙄.  I siphoned what I could, and there was quite a bit left when I loosened the petcock screws, drained it into a cut up water jug I had laying around.  Bottom line it made a mess, glad I did it in the driveway to hose it all down stream 🤫.  I had to remove the tailpipe, which is easy just a time consuming.  There was a bit of a learning curve getting the petcock out with the tube getting in the way.  Unfortunately I don’t recall what I learned off hand.  I was lucky and happened to have a Yamaha gasket that the PO had in the saddle bags.  If I remember I did do a little sanding/scraping to clean up the mounting surfaces.  Side note the petcock itself didn’t work and still doesn’t, I’m not concerned as it’s stuck on reserve.  I don’t recall if I had it on the center stand or side stand, do what makes you comfortable.

[Pasta Burner]

4 minutes ago, Tysons87venture said:

Thanks Spencer, I will try to tighten up the 2 screws. Do you use a stubby screw driver to get in there or a right angle bit? Seems like it will be tight to get a standard screw driver in there

I think you’re going to need to pull the tailpipe

[saddlebum]

12 hours ago, Tysons87venture said:

Thanks Spencer, I will try to tighten up the 2 screws. Do you use a stubby screw driver to get in there or a right angle bit? Seems like it will be tight to get a standard screw driver in there

With a  Philips bit on a 1/4 drive socket on a long wobble extension or flex joint on a 1/4 inch ratchet you should be able to reach up from the bottom without removing the exhaust. You may have to raise the tank a bit to sneak the petcock out because of the stand pipe which is about two inches long.

[Tysons87venture]

On 11/9/2021 at 8:38 AM, saddlebum said:

With a  Philips bit on a 1/4 drive socket on a long wobble extension or flex joint on a 1/4 inch ratchet you should be able to reach up from the bottom without removing the exhaust. You may have to raise the tank a bit to sneak the petcock out because of the stand pipe which is about two inches long.

Thanks saddle, I am to the point where I've got to lift tank in order to get petcock out, how would you go about doing this?

[Tysons87venture]

I was able to get petcock out without removing the tank, the trick was to remove the selector(Phillip's screw) pry cover off and remove 2 more Phillip's screws, this makes petcock much smaller and able to slide it out on an angle towards rear tire between swing arm.

 

Thanks everyone who helped me get this figured out.

[saddlebum]

Glad your making progress.