Unless you are talking about some sort of mechanical device, I'd suggest that you get your prostate checked!

John

I think I have seen fuel tap corks at one of the Villiers spares sites. Colin

Modern petrol contains ethanol and has a detrimental affect on some seals and taps on older bikes.

**LINK**

Windy

Mole grips on the pipe.

To be honest Wolfie I wouldn’t bother faffing about with the old tap. Ebay is the place lots of new ones at good prices and ethanol proof too.
Don’t know about delrin and petrol but give it a try.
Mark P.

I've used PTFE bar to make seals that may work.

Martin P

Removing ethanol from petrol is relatively simple. You need a clear plastic container with a drain tap at the bottom. Fill with 10 ltrs of petrol and 1 ltr of water and shake vigorously. Leave it to settle overnight and the ethanol and water will settle to the bottom, then just drain this off.

If it's leaking externally, there's a fair chance it's leaking internally, so fuel flows to the carb, float needle may not handle it, and then it's passed the carb into the inlet port. Motor in the wrong position, In valve open and it's in the engine. Not good.

Fuel taps HAVE TO work and be in GOOD condition.

My understanding is that modern fuel contains ethanol as a means of raising the Octane rating without the risk of detonation, to counteract the removal of lead. Control of detonation was the main reason why tetraethyl lead was added to 'leaded' fuel. Since the use of lead was banned, fuel chemists have tried a number of other ways to maintain the octane rating of the old 'super' fuel without the detrimental effects of unleaded fuel. Ethanol appears to have been the most successful of those. My 1975 VW Kombi and my 2003 Subaru both run well on current 95 Octane fuel containing 10% to 15% ethanol with no degradation of seals or other components. In fact they run better on that than on normal 91 Octane unleaded, and give matching fuel economy as well.

Ethanol shouldn't degrade cork seals, after all cork was used to seal wine bottles and if kept moist by laying the bottles down they would last for decades. However modern wine bottle corks are a mixture of cork and resin or even entirely plastic. Petrol may well attack those.

I did use wine bottle corks in the 1970s for relining a wet clutch but wouldn't do that with modern corks.

Buy the correct seals or make sure that any cork you use is the real stuff.

Russell

Direct modern replacement of certain parts on old machinery can be an advantage in respect of safety and/or reliability.

I tend to prefer keeping something in it's original form wherever possible. I use quality repair kits for Fuel Taps and add mesh filters where there weren't any fitted. These examples are early/late 50s and are in full use after refurbishing-

Edited By Richard S2 on 21/03/2017 11:49:37