Smelling Gas

Hey gang,
Got a quick question. I'm having a problem with the smell of gasoline around my 89' FLHTC and I don't know where it's coming from. Even when the bike is outside, when you walk up to it you can smell the gas but I can't find any leaks or drips and I don't see anything coming out of the bowl overflow. If I bring it into the basement and don't run the carb out of gas and turn the petcock off its really bad. Not explosive bad, but you know how bad just a little gas fume will stink up a place.
Could it just be my gas cap not sealing? If I shut the petcock off the smell isnt' so bad.

Could it be something the the VOES underneath the tank?

Any idea's to point in the right direction would be helpful.

Thanks.

I was kind of thinking that too. It has the old pre-CV Kehnin carb on it. Would it make that much of a smell? I was afraid it was loading up in the heads. I just had the compression fittings on the heads changed last year cause they were dry rotted and cracked.

Thanks for the input.

Thx RHK, I'll check those things this weekend. As long as the gas is off there is no smell. I don't turn it on until I'm outside and ready to start.

Same happened to my cuzes bike....Float sticking......cleaned carb and adjusted....good as new, no problems

Thanks Mayor. I'll have to pull the bowl down and check the float. I had it openned up last year doing some jet upgrades and the float looked ok, but that don't mean it ain't hangin now.

Didn`t mention in the post before that Cuz bought that bike after sitting up a while and you know what that did to the gas and gummed up the carb......Just seem you also have some over flow from somewhere......Stopping the smell when you cut the gas off means something is running through...Good luck...

Also check out the elbow to the carb - the plastic fitting likes to crack - if you can replace it with a solid brass hi-flow elbow- yer bike will thank you for it.

Thx Sarge. I have replaced that piece. What a dumb idea that was to have a piece of plastic molded to a metal insert. Duh!!!

Anyhow, yeah, I replaced that last year when I was having air leak problems. Ended up being the Compliance fittings that were dry rotted.

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So what was the gas smell from. ever break down and look ?:gah:

Found it

The smelling gas problem when the bike was parked but gas not shut off was from the carberator bowl gasket not being in it's little track and fumes were leaking by when it was just sitting there. Fixed that gasket and wa-la!!! No more gas smell.

thanks so much everyone for your inputs!!

I had the chance to work in an apartment that got burned up because some guy was working on a bike in the basement and had fuel spill and got ignited by the water heater. I believer the bike was a dyna or a softtail. All that was left was front tire and fork. Everything else was ruined. Working inside a house is not a good idea.

Thanks a ton for the advice and concern. I'll take that into consideration the next time I have to do carb work on the bike or anything else in dealing with gas. Of course I don't smoke around the bike when I do this and I keep the double doors wide open with a fan blowing the fumes out for the most part, but burning the house down would be the last thing I'd ever want to do.

IronheadAJ...next time the compliance fittings dry out and crack...replace the carb and manifold to Keihin CV carb and the 90-up 3 piece manifold, the manifold is a definite upgrade and when the butterfly carbs start to act up it's way easier to upgrade to the CV type than getting them to run right again. JMHO.

Thanks man. I went through this conversation last year when I was having this problem and I think that's the path I'm going to go with. There's a ton of them on ebay for pretty good prices too. My next question is, are they all the same or do I need a specific year? Oh yeah, and do you have a part number for the 3 piece carb?

Ride on.

manifold-27019-89 front flange-27009-86A,rear flange-27010-86A, you'll need a seal ring for each flange-27002-89 and an intake manifold seal for carb to manifold mount-26995-86A and 4 screws to bolt manifold to the head # 3201W. These are taken out of my 87-90 parts book so some of the numbers may be upgraded, you may be able to get one from Ebay too. Any 40mm CV carb will work,TC or Evo,but there have been a few changes in them over the years, I'd look for a later year one with a brass fuel inlet. You'll need a CV type breather kit too.You may also need new throttle cables ,but I'm not sure about that.
Hope this helps ya:devil: