Questions - Full fuel tank drained out last night!

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Full fuel tank spilled out last night!

I’ve only rode my 2006 SWing about 130 miles since I brought it home and got it on the road.

I rode about 40 miles yesterday. At about 20 miles I filled up the tank, and rode home.

As soon as I pulled in, gas came gushing out from the bottom of the SWing. The whole 4 gallons drained out.

We started pulling off the fairing parts to get a better look to see where exactly the gas was coming from, but we quickly ran out of daylight.

Two questions:

1) What fairing/ body work pieces need to be removed to get a good view of the fuel tank and surrounding areas?

2) Any ideas of likely causes? I’m assuming one of the 16 year old fuel lines let loose or ruptured on the ride home?

A friend said they noticed a few small drops when I left yesterday evening for the ride, and I didn’t calculate it but my fuel mileage seemed a lot lower than I expected, so I assume the leak was already developing when I left.

Job well done! With the ST1100s I have, I’ve done some work on them I thought I would never do either including timing belt changes, brakes, wheel removal and tire swaps (and I now have my own tire changer machine), plus quite a bit more (and I’ve done some work on the SW as well)- you just take your time, label everything as you don’t want any spare parts left over at the end and reassemble. When I bought my SW, it sat for a while and the prior owner said he had to get a new fuel pump as well as tank cleaned of rust and that cost $600 when he had it done.

What I normally do (if you can find it) is use ethanol free fuel for the bikes, all of them, to avoid the phase separation that the ethanol fuels can get when the sit for a while (or use Stabil specifically for ethanol fuels)- just remember, corn is for eating, not for putting in the gas tank!

Where I live the Ethanol free fuel is pretty easy to find as there’s lots of boat owners here and I assume they run better on the ethanol free fuel.

I studiously avoided E10 fuel when it was first available alongside Unleaded in Germany, and for many years afterwards. Now E10 has replaced Unleaded here in the UK, I now realise over the years been a lot of maxi scooter forum posts regarding using E10 that are utter bollocks.

I've been using E10 in my Forza since September last year with no ill effects or performance whatsoever. But then again I'm not letting a tank full of the stuff sit for months in my scooters fuel tank to degrade, which I'd say is the real reason for those having problems.

Years ago, I gullibility bought fuel stabiliser because of similar forum scaremongering about Unleaded during the winter months. It was totally unnecessary because a good ride out and topping up with fresh fuel afterwards works much so much better.

When I bought the Forza last year I decided to use E5 and did so for the first few months.
First service done, I had my first trip down South (500 miles).
Having seen the price of petrol on one of my motorway stops I resolved to try a tankful of E10, remembering the dealer said the bike would run well on it.
I was not disappointed, noticing no difference whatever in performance.
As I don't do very many miles in the winter so use little fuel, I wonder if a tankful of E5 might be a good idea; I'm open to advice although I suspect that that from UK riders here will be to not bother .... so I won't.

MikeO wrote:

When I bought the Forza last year I decided to use E5 and did so for the first few months.
First service done, I had my first trip down South (500 miles).
Having seen the price of petrol on one of my motorway stops I resolved to try a tankful of E10, remembering the dealer said the bike would run well on it.
I was not disappointed, noticing no difference whatever in performance.
As I don't do very many miles in the winter so use little fuel, I wonder if a tankful of E5 might be a good idea; I'm open to advice although I suspect that that from UK riders here will be to not bother .... so I won't.

I think E10 as fine as long as the scoot doesn’t sit for too long (like more than over a winter with the tank full)- as long as it’s not sitting for several years unused. That’s when issues will develop, even with 100% gas (varnish, etc.)- years ago, I had that issue with one of the ST1100s- it wouldn’t idle over 500 rpm (would be fine when you gave it the gas) as the idle jets (carbureted bike) got clogged, so I had to pull the carbs and clean them. I haven’t used fuel stabilizer in several years, primarily because in my region (southern US), I can ride all year long, so the bikes get used regularly and the tank of fuel doesn’t sit very long.

Thank you; that's most helpful.

BrianInVA wrote:

Easyrider wrote:

Your YouTube link requires us to sign in to view your video. Not sure if you have to give us guest credentials?

Hmmm… does this work?

https://m.youtube.com/shorts/n0mRt54JwI0

(It’s just a 20 second video of it running/ revving.)

This is what I am seeing.

Easyrider wrote:

This is what I am seeing.

It’s really not that important but I reloaded it. Hopefully this will work.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/pOjtVu_3A6U

BrianInVA wrote:

Easyrider wrote:

This is what I am seeing.

It’s really not that important but I reloaded it. Hopefully this will work.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/pOjtVu_3A6U

Works great! Mahalo for fixing the YouTube access.