Bad petcock temporary solution

Mine is hosed, flows full in any setting regardless of vacuum.

Needs rebuilt, obviously, but I am really short on money and need to proceed with other aspects of the repair that I can do in the meantime...

One headache with the bad petcock is having to drain the tank every time I need to remove the carbs....and when something happens, like when one of my float tips stuck and fuel was pouring through...couldn't cut the fuel off so had to drain the tank again...

Dawned on me yesterday that anyplace that sells lawn/farm power equipment will have little universal fuel petcocks for about $5.

Duh. Wish I'd thought of it a week or two ago...

 

Have you taken the petcock apart to clean it? Sometimes thats all it takes.

 

I thought about it...was afraid the sealing parts might fall apart and I end up unable to use my gas tank at all...which would really put the brakes on the whole project....

 

I doubt they would fall apart. there's a rubber o-ring on the plunger and a large flat rubber piece on the lever side. Everything else is metal. Mine was initially the flat rubber piece that had torn slightly. then when I rebuilt the petcock I had to slightly lengthen the plunger so that it would seat. This was done by placing the plunger in a 3/8 socket and lightly tapping it to create a very small dimple in the metal washer. Worked like a charm.

 

I would still take the petcock apart. A little cleaning and some silicone grease does wonders. If the main rubber washer has some tears in it then flip it over, the other side is identical. The hardware store has o-rings if you need them.
Put a dollar a day in a jar and in a month you will have enough for a repair kit. You might be leaking that in gas and not even know it.

 

i just spent $80 for the deluxe kit from chacal and got rid of the vaccum operation and ive been extremely happy with it

not saying you need the deluxe kit, he has some for about $20 bucks also