stella leaks gas after replacing carburetor floater+needle

alexthedude66 · Post by **alexthedude66** » Fri May 28, 2010 10:26 pm

Hi all,

A few weeks ago I noticed that my scooter was getting flooded every time I parked it. even if I left it for an hour.

I was I told to shut off the gas of my Stella 150cc to avoid the problem.

I never had to do that with the many vespas I had in my life.

I was also suggested to replace the floater and the needle that actually take care of shutting the gas flow in the carburetor when the stella is parked.

So I bought the carburetor kit from scootermercato.com and when I took the carburetor apart I found the floater half full of gas (scooter mercato step by step instructions suggests to replace the floater if there is gas inside), the needle wasn't in bad conditions but i replaced it with the new one anyway.

After replacing both things unfortunately the problem still persisted.

Yesterday, only 3 days after replacing these two parts, my stella started to leak gas.

I took the carburetor apart again and I found the floater I had just replaced completely full of gas.
If the floater has gas in it, it obviously can't float in the housing where it resides and if it doesn't float it can't push the needle up and shut the gas flow off.
That was now causing the continuous gas leak.

How come that in just 3 days the floater (which looks as if it's sealed) got full of gas?

Did I do something wrong when I replaced it?

It looked like a very simple operation and that there's very little that can go wrong.

I had to put back the old floater but unfortunately 2 days later (meaning now) the floater got full of gas again and the scooter is leaking again.

Does anybody have any suggestions?

please help

Thanks

Alessandro

Silver Streak · Post by **Silver Streak** » Sat May 29, 2010 2:12 am

Wow. I've heard of leaky floats, but what are the odds of getting two in a row like that?

Doesn't sound to me like you are doing anything wrong. They must have had a bad batch of floats.

BuddyRaton · Post by **BuddyRaton** » Sat May 29, 2010 11:42 am

It does sound like a bad batch of floats. Call Scooter M and see if it is a bad batch. It is a good idea to always turn off the fuel tap. It can be hard to remember at first but it becomes habit.

Give us an update!

alexthedude66 · Post by **alexthedude66** » Sat May 29, 2010 12:06 pm

Hi guys,

thanks for the reply.

It cannot really be a bad batch. The first float was the one that came with the Stella. It worked for the two months i have had the stella for even though I eventually found it half full when i took the carburetor apart.

the second one might actually be faulty but how come that when i put back the original one it only lasted 2 days...?

I get the feeling that I did something wrong although i really don't know what.

BuddyRaton · Post by **BuddyRaton** » Sat May 29, 2010 1:37 pm

Go to stella speed, yeah you need to register. Alienmeatsack has a good step by step carb rebuild. Read through it and see if you might have missed something

Anachronism · Post by **Anachronism** » Mon May 31, 2010 9:17 pm

alexthedude66 wrote:Hi guys,

thanks for the reply.

It cannot really be a bad batch. The first float was the one that came with the Stella. It worked for the two months i have had the stella for even though I eventually found it half full when i took the carburetor apart.

the second one might actually be faulty but how come that when i put back the original one it only lasted 2 days...?

I get the feeling that I did something wrong although i really don't know what.

It still sounds like a defective float.