Teething problems - petcock / fuel valve

[flamesnm]

All

Bike is done. I haven't done a build thread as most of you would have grown old and died in the time it's take to complete the build. Anyway, it's back and passed the MOT, and I'm now dealing with teething problems.

It has an SR500 tank mounted, with an aftermarket ALFA non-vacuum petcock. The clearance is limited to I've had to put a spacer under the tank mount, but still left it too tight and I think the petcock has been vibrating against the engine causing a fuel leak.

I'd like to drop the tank down to the height I wanted, so I'm thinking of running an inline fuel value with a pingel tank plate adapter. I just wanted to poll opinion to see if anyone else has done this, or knows of a really short petcock for an SR500 tank.

Here's a photo of the old girl (not my garage)

 

[grizld1]

There are plenty of compact, inexpensive, and very effective screw-in petcocks out there in 1/4" NPT, and it's simple to make your own adapter plate instead of letting Pingel hose you for theirs. Just get a piece of 3/16" aluminum bar stock, a 1/4" NPT tap, a bit of gasket paper, a can of Gasgacinch, a roll of plumber's Teflon tape, and some time on a drill press if you don't own one. You may need to enlarge the opening in the tank a little with a round file.

 

[Brew]

here's how I do it. I can't find these valves anymore and am currently looking for replacements.

 

[flamesnm]

That's neat Brew. I'm looking at an Italian company that might have something similar. How are you connecting fuel pipe to the tank ?

Thanks also grizld1. It's something I'd like to do, but I'm just keen to get on the bike and ride it now. It's been too long. Once it's running and riding I can start fettling ( English word only ?? ) and looking at making my fab skills a little better.

 

[Brew]

90 degree barb fitting

 

[fredintoon]

Hi flames,
yeah, the SR500 tank's gas tap mounts in exactly the wrong place, eh?
Brew's 90º elbow and in-line gas tap fix will work.
It'll also hone your odometer reading skills because the in-line gas tap fix eliminates the reserve gas option.
And if your ALFA petcock is FUBAR it's sawn-off mounting base will make a freebie tank adapter just by tapping a 1/8" pipe threaded hole through it.
Fettling:- originally, to remove runners, risers and flashmarks from castings. These days, to make minor improvements in things.

 

[flamesnm]

Thanks all. I didn't spend nearly enough time here during the build and I missed out on this kind of quality advice.

Sawing the ALFA base off.....I would never have considered that but it's genius.

 

[XSLeo]

Here state side, most any place that deals with lawn mowers and garden tractors and other equipment with small gas engines sells a plastic fuel shut off. Might shop around to see what you find.
Once you have your current petcock cut off and threaded, use most any 90* bend elbow that threads in and put a 1/4 hose barb in the elbow, short piece of fuel line, shut off and more fuel line to filter then to carbs.
I have an old lawn mower gas tank with one of these shut offs hooked on for testing. Like carb syncing and such where the stock tank gets in the way. I can even attach it to the back bone for short road tests.
Leo