Leaky Petcock Fix

[Mayor08]

I have a 2008 Bonneville Black and last fall the petcock would weep a little bit of fuel and come this spring it was a drip.

I did some searching and found an exploded view of the petcock (can't find it now) and decided I'd drain the tank and remove the screw at the 6 o'clock positing directly below the selector (ON/OFF/Reserve) once removed the selector pulls out but watch there is a spring that comes with it.

Inside the selector housing is an O ring my plan was to take it to the auto parts store and find something about the same size that wouldn't react to fuel.

What I ended up doing was flipping the O ring around and put it back in place then put everything back together and have been leak free for 3 days.

Just an FYI to anyone else that might have this problem- sometimes the simple fix works!

Now if only I had tried re-torquing my cam cover bolts before I replaced the gasket....

 

[mark66]

Thanks for posting....nice quick fix to try.

 

[cantilever]

that's a good tip. Always good to flip the o-ring and let it run until you need to replace it.... did this with older fuel pump solenoids on the diesel VWs....

The design of the fuel tap - the o-ring seats on the edge of the barrel - it does not seat on a nice flat surface, it's a sharp edge, so they can develop a leak easily (less surface area to make a seal).

I eventually just got a pingel, but - if you are thrifty and want to spend money on something else, a few o-rings, and flipping them before discarding will go a long way.

good tip!