fuel in crankcase

Have a 76 gl1000 that I just barely put back on the road. I noticed evidence of fuel leakage from the fuel pump (streaks of brownish gold). Bike sat for 3 weeks before I could get a brand new eom pump. Put the new one on it yesterday and noticed tank was empty (I know, shut off the petcock... will do from now on).

I was installing my new oil filter bolt (old one is stripped) today and the drained oil smells heavily of gas.

Will the fuel pump leaking empty gas into the crank? Thought the leak was just external, but seems possible that the fuel could be leaking into the engine. The pump is directly above the cam and head after all.

Anything else that I should check or keep an eye on?

I just rebuilt the carbs and am reasonably sure they are ok. Read some posts that said the carbs could leak into the crank. Would a float not shutting off do this? Seems it would most likely leak though the cylinder and into the exhaust pipe (path of least resistence).

yes and yes to both questions ......turn off gas is the best thing to do .......and keep riding and see how it dose under close whatch :mrgreen:

Agreed, turning off the petcock is the best way to prevent this from happening.

Saw a post where someone put clear tubing into the bowl drain holes, let the carbs fill under grav, and used the tubing to see where the level of the fuel is in the bowl. Will check this out tomorrow (hopefully) to ensure good float level settings.

Hopefully it was just the pump!

Will do that once I am ready to start it again, Thanx.

If the gas petcock is left open and one carb is leaking, it will create a vacuum which can suck the gas out of your tank in about a week. I had it happen twice last winter with the bike sitting in the garage.

My carbs would leak down even with the petcock closed once they started leaking. Most likely for me it was the dramatic change in temps in the garage that allowed the gas to start leaking (plus the float pins were not sealing shut). Once I adjusted the floats and cleaned the needle valves, it stopped leaking into the engine.

That's a great way to check your float bowl levels- Thanks for the tip!

Looks like the number 3 fuel shutoff needle is seeping.

duanes7":3uhky4m7 said:

Looks like the number 3 fuel shutoff needle is seeping.

Click to expand...

Clean the needle up and be sure the float is set right on both sides. I had to adjust my float to 17mm to get the needle to stop leaking on #1.