Died and venting gas

[lesvor]

I'm glad to find a forum for this, thanks in advance for any help you may be able to give me.


I have a 2019 Tao Tao 150cc scooter (GY6 motor I think) with about 1500 miles on it, we've had it for about 3 months. On the way into town this evening it just died, I was going about 55MPH. I tried to restart and at first it just turned over and didnt fire at all. a little later it did fire up a couple times for a few seconds but then died and it was dumping fuel from a line on the left side of the motor that looks like it was intended for that purpose.


I'm pretty mechanical, but I dont know where to start with this, I'd like to get the spark plug out but I cant even figure out how to get the plug wire off (it has a metal shroud on it)


If some one could give me some ideas, or at least a place to start, it would be greatly appreciated.


Thanks

EDIT: I figured out how to get the plug wire off and got the plug out. I expected to find it drown in gas but it's dry..... it had spark but I have nothing to compare it to, seems a little weak but there's no gas on it so I'd say spark is not the issue.

[sc00ter]

I would pull the float bowl off the carb and see if some trash is floating around, causing the float to stick. My old Yamaha Zuma has a corroded carb that rears its head in protest every now and then. But I suspect its float related and something is causing it to hang up. Let us know what solves your issue when you figure it out.

[lesvor]

Thanks, I'm pretty sure it is the carb now, but I can't remove the bowl because the screws don't have heads on them... Looks like they don't want you to remove it. I'm still scratching my head and watching YouTube vids

[sc00ter]

Its either 4 screws to remove the float bowl or one in the center of the float bowl. It has to be serviceable, so keep looking. Oh, and be careful when removing the float bowl. They tend to stick a bit and sometimes you can manhandle it, then it breaks loose and you clip or hang-up the float itself on the bowl during removal and throw the float height off. It comes straight down. Its a tight fit inside of the carb. Be careful!

[sc00ter]

And dont mind me asking, if your scooter is a 2019, isn't the warranty still valid? If so, let them fix it. Just curious.

[sc00ter]

Before I go to sleep, this popped in my head. Did you fill it with fuel before the cut-out/stall? If so, could you have overfilled it and flooded out the emission/evap system? Just a last minute thought.....

[lesvor]

Its either 4 screws to remove the float bowl or one in the center of the float bowl. It has to be serviceable, so keep looking. Oh, and be careful when removing the float bowl. They tend to stick a bit and sometimes you can manhandle it, then it breaks loose and you clip or hang-up the float itself on the bowl during removal and throw the float height off. It comes straight down. Its a tight fit inside of the carb. Be careful!

I've learned a lot in the last few hours. The carb is what called an EPA carb, no adjustments. I could probably get the screws out but a new carb is $20, I'll have one Friday.

The warrantee ends tomorrow as best we can tell, but there are no nearby authorized service departments.

I found debris in the fuel filter, it looks like red paint flakes.... not sure how it got through the filter, but I also have a new filter coming. If this turns out to be the problem then I'll get a better carb with the larger jets and a better quality filter.. the fuel venting from the carb is most likely doing what it was designed to do. I don't think the float is stuck because I was running at pretty much full throttle so the bowl was not likely full.

I'm guessing on some of this, I'll see if the new carb works and go from there. I'm also just learning that the valves need to be adjusted on a regular basis and I haven't done that (I don't see that in my owners manual) but I don't think that's the problem.

[lesvor]

I got the new carb in and it works well, it also came with a better fuel filter.

[sc00ter]

So youre back up and running I take it? I would usually say that just swapping out parts is bad, but at the low cost you paid to try I think it was well worth it. And after some thinking, I've ran into those tamper proof carbs. Once you remove those tamper screws from the old carb, just match the thread pitch and length with original srews (we use allen heads) from a better hardware store. Learn how the old carb works and see if you can get it working again. Now, valves are not hard at all. Again, U-Tube will be your friend. Once you learn how to do them you will feel scooter empowered!

[Roscoe]

What did we do before youtube? I spent hours looking through motor manuals, page by page.