T: Fuel Tank Petrol taps

vibrac

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Those stainless steel ball petrol taps with the black plastic handles a bit like this
adorn all my bikes ever since Ron Kemp introduced them to me 20 or more years ago
belatedly (a few years ago) I have been told on this forum how to adjust the ball with a lage allen key but I have one tap that persistently drips
I suspect the o ring that I assume is in there has given in to the ethanol
is that it ? has anyone refurbished one?
 

bmetcalf

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I searched for “ball valve “ on both those sites and didn’t see any with 1/8” male ends. Any other sources?
 

BigEd

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I got mine from Screwfix. They are listed under gas parts, mini ball valve in three sizes, 8 x 8 mm, 10 x 10 mm and 15 x 15 mm. I think the ones I got were 10 x 10 mm. The thread is 1/4" BSP. They have lots of outlets in the UK. I think they would be available at a similar type of DIY store in the USA. You could take a petrol pipe fitting into the shop with you and check the thread. They are shown on the page at the link below:
Screwfix mini ball valve link.
 

Robert Watson

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In the US they would likely be 1/4 NPT which is tapered and 18 TPI --- BSP is straight and 19 TPI.
I bought mine when in the UK. I have them on several bikes and no leaks.
 

oexing

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Don´t forget to check Ebay , there are a myriad of dealers, so a big chance to find just the type of item you are chasing:
ball valve
or from UK:
ball valve 1/8
To be open, I would not like the looks of these on my bikes, too modern. Instead you could modify the taper type brass taps by copying the taper in stainless and lap that with extremely fine paste in the tap. Brass mated with brass - or any same type materials - does not work in the long run, simply seizes.
Vic
Leitungen.JPG
 

greg brillus

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Ahhhhhhhhhh..........fuel taps..........Probably one of the more frustrating parts of old bikes, especially if you have a black engine. These taps shown are great, I used them on the Vincent racer and also use them on my new toy, again a racer but an Eso/Norton for the fuel and oil taps. I found the small screw holding the lever on can come undone and the lever falls off never to be seen again. I removed the ones on the new bike and put loctite on the small threads to stop this happening again. Only downside is they don't have any filters, but I have an upswept line to the Amal 302 float bowl that would trap any foreign matter, quite critical on those type float chambers that readily flood.
 
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