Commonly, when a scooter is parked for a significant length of time its gas goes bad, and by significant time I mean 4 months or longer. Bad gas gets gummy so that it doesn’t ignite as well as when it was fresh, and if the scooter does start, it probably won’t run well with bad gas in it. The problem of gas that’s been sitting for a long time is that it mucks up your carburetor and that is why it either won’t start, or won’t run very well.
Your carb sits on top of your engine which is accessible under the seat, so remove the seat first. There is probably an engine cover next so remove that too, and you’ll be looking down into the engine compartment.
Cleaning or Replacing a Scooter Carburetor?
You should first try to clean your carb to see if that’s the proper fix for why your scooter won’t start after months of sitting idle. To clean this part of the fuel system you’ll want to remove the carburetor, drain it, thoroughly spray it clean, and replace it for a test run. If it still doesn’t run right, you should replace the carburetor.
How to Remove a Scooter Carburetor
Here are the carb removal steps in a nutshell:
- Remove the seat,
- take off the engine cover,
- take off the throttle cable,
- remove or loosen the intake manifold,
- lift out the carburetor,
- pull off the fuel hose,
- pull off the vacuum hose.
How to Clean a Scooter Carburetor
With the carburetor in a bucket or something to catch fuel that pours out, remove the float bowl from the carb and let the gas fall out of it.
Spray the carburetor well with cleaner and be sure to get in around it all and make sure you spray it at the jets, (they should be the brass colored things). When it’s clean looking you can put the float bowl back on.
The gas should be all out of the carb now, and next you need to drain the gas tank so you can be sure that no old gas will pass through the system again. Point the fuel line at your bucket and create a vacuum and syphon out the old gas with your hose pointing downward- it will run right out of the tank once you’ve created a vacuum.
Reinstall the carburetor and then refill the gas tank with fresh new gas.
Need A New Replacement Carburetor?
Once it’s all back together you can start up the scooter and see if it runs smoothly. If not, then it’s probably time for a new carb.
What carb will fit my scooter?
If you have come to the conclusion that you need to replace a scooter carburetor, you have to get the right size. We have carburetors for 50cc, 100cc, 125cc, and 150cc GY6 clone scooters. Note that when you see the cc size of a small engine, it’s typically rounded up, so a 49cc is referred to as a 50cc engine.
For Hot Street Scooters carburetors and their parts click here. This link may come in handy if you’re doing this procedure on a old scooter with dry rotted and brittle parts that break, like the intake manifold.
We have carburetors, manifolds, air filters, fuel filters, hoses, clamps, jets and whatnot.
Click the link above or the image here to see our GY6 fuel system parts.
Want to Upgrade Your Scooter?
If you want to upgrade your scooter for more speed and power, read this.
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