[gstam4]

if it's something i can do myself, i'm happy to try and learn the bike. makes it feel more like mine!

turns out my plastic side cover needed a hex key to open, and then the screws for the air filter cover were phillips. the air filter reeks of gasoline. (dumb question: how would gas get into the air filter?)

at a minimum, i know i'll be buying a new air filter, new spark plug, and several liters of cheap oil. i already have some royal purple 10w-40 for the end.

is the problem almost surely in the carb? if so, would i remove the carb, disassemble and clean it, figure out what the problem is, put it back in, and then do a couple of oil changes to flush the gas-contaminated oil out of my engine? or is there a lot more to it than that, possibly?

i was looking around for a how-to on the carb removal and cleaning, but came up empty. i do have the service manual posted on this site, but it's a little hard to read...def better than nothing, though.