Scooter got left in the rain last night, now it won't start By zombieninja (Read 3,709 times)

[zombieninja]

OK let me start off by saying that I know it was very irresponsible for me to leave my scooter outside and uncovered. I'm ashamed of myself. I have apologized numerous times to my poor scooter. That being said now I need to figure out what happened. My scooter (50cc QMB 139) turns over but will not fire up. It rained pretty hard last night so my first thought is that maybe its the spark plug. I pulled the plug and checked for a spark against the frame. I'm not really sure what's supposed to happen but it sparked a couple little sparks against the frame and then traveled up and gave me a small jolt. So does that mean its good? Screwed it back in and got the same thing. No luck. I removed it again and it started to rain again so a replacement will have to wait till tommorow. Ok so what else could this be? I need some help on this one. Fuel lines maybe? I'm just not sure how to diagnose this. Thanks in advance.

[Alleyoop]

You check for SPARK holding the plug to the VALVE COVER OR MOTOR NOT THE FRAME. It can fire on the frame BUT not on the motor. The motor has a ground wire going to the frame and if that is not making good contact then the plug will not fire while in the motor. So if it sparks holding it to the MOTOR then it should start up Unless a lot of water got into the gas tank.
Alleyoop

[jvino]

Oh no zombie ninja the scooter rider that racks up the amazing amount of miles. Wow neglecting the amazing scooter sounds like the great alley is trying to say drain your tank the water has got into it. You might want to crack the bolt on the bottom to of the carb to drain all the bad gas. This zombie scooter doesn't need these problems I am surprised your having problems. Drain the gas and get back I wan't to hear about 20,000 miles by the end of summer. Get yourself a jug to put fuel in and get a fresh gallon and get back to us. Sorry you are having problems.

[zombieninja]

So I tried just about everything except draining my fuel and replacing it. That's gonna be the next thing I do. I gotta borrow a gas can then get a ride to the gas station. I just can't see how water would get in there. Plus wouldn't my scooter have fired up first then went out when the gas hit the carb. I'll tell you I did get it to start for like two seconds yesterday when I took off the air box cover. I just hate not being mobile.

[zombieninja]

OK so Alleyoop you were right.I drained my carb then tried to restart a couple times. Took a little while and I got pissed off more than once. Eventually it started to kick over. Then it would stay running for a little while but only barely. If I gave it gas it would shut off. After 15 minutes or so of that it finally came back to life. Rain got into either the tank or the carb and had settled to the bottom which in this case would b the carb float bowl. Its running as we speak. I'm gonna idle it for a while then see if it fires back up. Thanks for all the help. Once again I get bailed out by my friendly fellow scooter drivers on scooterdoc.proboards. Seriously if it weren't for you guys i would have been stuck a long time ago. Thanks again.

[Guitarman]

The water got in by condensation, not a leaky system. Anytime you open the tank to gas up you let humidity in there. The rain cooled everything to the point it condensed into your fuel. I keep a bit of Drygas handy for just this kind of thing.

[zombieninja]

That makes a lot of sense actually. It gets very humid in the Ohio Valley. It was in the 90's all week then the rain dropped the temperature pretty quickly. Well at least if it happens again I'll know what to do about it.