Modern Vespa

Hi there,

I bought a used vespa gts 300 2018 a couple of months ago. I noticed it seems to be leaking to some liquid. I noticed it only after I owned ot for a while when it got colder. So I think it might be due to thermal expansion? Unfortunately I can not say wether it is oil or coolant. It does leave a stain on the floor and when i touch it it does not seem to slippery as i would expect oil to feel. I also noticed a lot of vibrations at low rpm if the engine is cold. Other than that it runs great and I like it a lot.

I looked at the engine a couple of times from the top but everything looked clean. Today i put my smartphone on top of the liquid stainand took a photo towards the engine. I attached a photo of what it looked like.

Do you think it is a leaky gasket? I am kind of worried it would be an expensive fix. Do you think it is fine just riding on and checking the liquid levels from time to time and see wether it dissapears in spring?

Thanks a lot for your help

Is that wet pink coolant on the exhaust clamp bolt?

Thanks for your reply! I can check tomorrow. I will check by hand if I can get it in there. Also if i catch a drop from the source it may be easier to determine what it is.. What i noticed is a drop of oil? Next (on top in the image) to where the exhaust manifold is attached to the engine.

ah, I see your circled part. hmm. use a paper towel from the kitchen and dab it (don't smear the towel around or you'll also pick up dirt). now look at the colour; oil will be golden (new) through to dark brown (old) and coolant is usually pale pink in a vespa.

That, and you can taste it: if it's coolant (and only then), you'll immediately notice a sweet tone.

Don't swallow!

Thanks for your answers!

To the good news: So I check today and it clearly is oil. I did manage to get my hand to the source and it was oily also the color was brown.

And the bad news: I checked and I think this is the cylinder base gasket that is leaking. So probably quite a bit of work to replace it. I think I will wait untill spring and check whether it will still leak when the temperatures are higher. Also I did clean the area a bit so I can ckeck if it leaks while running.

Does anyone know how much that would approximately cost?

Thanks
Flo[/quote]

entirely dependent on locale and service station.

I'm not sure why you think the outside temperature would cause an oil leak. If it's leaking now, it's still leaking in the spring.

Are you sure it's a leak? Were you able to clean it all up real well and then try to observe where the leak starts from?

I'm with you. I'd double check the source with fingers crossed that it's a bad clamp at the thermostat housing that's dribbling coolant down the b-side and into that area.

but to your point, if it's oil, temps aren't going to affect that.

Clean the area off completely. Contact cleaner works very well, so does gasoline, to get the oil completely off the engine. Then spray where you think the leak is coming from with foot powder spray. Ride it. You will see exactly where the oil is coming from.

Also worth seeing how bad it is.

Let it go down to the minimum on the dipstick, then fill it up to maximum and make a note of how much oil it takes to do that. Make a note of the mileage and date as well.

Then run it until it's back on the minimum, and post how many miles and how many days that took to happen.

If it's a teeny tiny leak, it might be best to just ignore it and ride at this stage...