Hi, my wm fuel taps have started to leak and when I stripped them the rubber seals were badly degraded so I purchased some cork seals.
Should I soak them in petrol or oil first or is it ok to fit them dry?
Thanks for any help guys, steve
Water & petrol do not mix so if you are using ethanol free petrol then boil them in water.
Just so long as the tank has petrol in it the petrol prevents them from drying out.
If you use E10 then they will need to be boiled in WD 40 or similar.
This will take a very long time.
You can also boil them in light machine oil which will take longer still.
They're meant to have corks in. It responds far better to being lightly nipped up. Does the body have the concentric raised rings that bite into the seal ? I fitted NOS Enots to my Norton about ten years ago and they're still fine.
Make sure by the way that you only use pure cork or if it's impregnated, only with Viton. The old nitrile rubber cork sheet that turns up at jumbles doesn't stand a chance even with 5% ethanol.
I got some pure cork washers about 20 years ago, and was told by a Brough Superior guru to soak them in castor oil and then fit them. They soaked over the winter, and have held up very well since, such that I haven't had to change them - and so I now do this for all my cork on-off push-pull taps.
I use synthetic wine bottle corks, cut to size, with the central hole melted out with a hot wire. I have had these working with no leaks for over 12 years now. They don't need soaking in anything.
