Smell gas and bike wouldn't start
 

Driving around at Bikeweek, stopped at a bar, ate a brat and had a beer. When I came back out and sat on the bike, I smelled gas. Weird, I thought to myself.

Tried to start bike, no go. The fuel pump came on, the bike tried to crank, but would not start. Tried to start four or five times.

Checked connections on plugs, battery, etc., everything seemed good and tight. I had at least a half tank of gas in it. This is a 2020 Heritage, four months old, 3,500 miles on the odo.

Let the bike sit for 15-20 minutes, went to start bike and it cranked right up and drove fine. I've driven it twice since then with no problems.

Any ideas WTF? Maybe it's something I need to look at so it doesn't happen again and strand me.

And no, it wasn't the coronavirus.

Has this happened to anyone else?

Not to me on 2018. Sorry about no help.

Had a small fuel leak out of the overflow tube when shut down in early summer 2019 (about 5k miles). Fixed under warranty. Did not have starting problem.

Call your dealer and set up appt.

I had a truck that would not start on warm starts, due to fuel pressure regulator. Under warranty I am guessing. Is there anything different about the time frame or circumstance when you started it again? How long between starts. I had a bike that would not start with aftermarket igniton on occassions, stock ignition, no problem.

Myself, I'd paranoid about where I stopped. Obviously not good. It's not going to fix itself.


The other times it started fine, was the tank full?

https://www.hdforums.com/forum/2018-...il-leak-2.html

See the above link. It was a fuel leak, not oil.

No, no difference. My wife thinks somebody might have fooled with it, but I doubt that seriously. I mean, what could they have done?

Dude I was with says the bike was sitting in direct sunlight and was hot as a firecracker, and he thinks that might have something to do with it. We were all grasping at straws.

Yeah, it's under warranty, I'll take it in see what they say I guess.

I've started bikes 100 degrees in the sun. For me it effects pinning, when you give it throttle, and kick back when starting I don't know what's wrong with yours, part of trouble shooting is trying to figure out what's different. Warranty does you no good on side of road.

if you can figure out if there is a time that it starts better, might get you home.

Unless their is a stored code the dealership may not be able to re create the problem and your bike will be tied up with them for however long. If it happens again the first thing that i would try doing would be quickly open the fuel cap and listen if there is a whoosh of air entering the tank. If so it just may be a venting issue.

Same thing happened to my 2019 Heritage a couple of times, it was the gas cap.

Maybe heat from the sun pressurized your fuel tank. The pressure should be relieved by your gas cap but if the cap was faulty maybe there's a way the pressure could relieve through the injectors, leading to a flooded engine? Might depend on how much gas was in the tank, probably hard to duplicate. You could feed it a new gas cap I guess, better than doing nothing.

This is what I think happened, or something like it. That strong gas smell cannot be just a coincidence, that the bike didn't start.