This was a fun fuel leak...

Well, I was riding home a couple of days ago when all of a sudden I felt something cold on my left leg. I had just washed the bike, so when I looked down and saw a wet spot on my left pantleg, I figured it was just water dripping from under the seat. I looked down again after a couple of seconds to see the wet spot had grown substantially, and there was a liquid streaming over my left side cover. I stopped the bike at the side of the street to inspect what was going on.

It turns out the 90 degree elbow that comes off the petcock (the one the rubber line attaches to) had come right out of the petcock, and leaked a gallon of fuel onto my sidecover, transmission, exhaust pipe, and my BRAND NEW pair of jeans.

I have to find a way to get that elbow piece to stay in the petcock. Has anyone had a similar experience?

I had the same petcock and the same thing happened to mine. it came off about halfway, I didnt notice till I pulled into a gas station to fill up. I just replaced the petcock with a duel outlet kind from a 77-78 "A" model KZ. Its the same petcock but the outlets point back and will not pop off like the one you have now.

I personally would take one of two paths with this problem.

1. Buy a new petcock
or
2. (my personal preferance)
Clean the elbow and the hole it goes in with sandpaper to rough the surface slightly, insert the elbow about 1/4 of the way into the hole (you don't want to get any on the end of the fitting), Put JB Weld on the exposed section of the elbow's fitting, and then slide it the rest of the way in. Make sure there's a bead all of the way around the insertion point, and when it's dry, come back and file/sand the bead down to a small ridge so that it doesn't look like crap.

I felt this topic would be more appropriate in the carburetor section since it is fuel related and not engine related...

JB Weld is about the best way to fix it since that is one of the few adhesives I know that doesn't break down in gasoline.

I had somthing similar... not as drastic, but the same in that the elbow piece would come loose. I cleaned it best I could and wrapped it with plumbers tephlon tape.. I got excited the first time and put way too much on which would not allow me to properly seat the stem. I played a few times to get it nice and snug. I thought it would be temporary, but it is still there after a year of daily riding.
probobly not as safe or long term as the jb weld.... but it might get you to the hardware store to get the jb....

Mine slips out like that too. There is a tiny groove in it about half way up the shaft. I'm wondering if that isn't for a tiny metal ring to lock it in. I use the teflon tape also. That way it's a lot easier than taking the line off if you want to pull the tank.
Ride safe,
Les

I JB welded mine last Winter, and have had no problems so far. Just make sure you have it pointed in the direction you want.

wiredgeorge wrote:

I felt this topic would be more appropriate in the carburetor section since it is fuel related and not engine related...

Sorry WG, I'm still used to the old format where everything fuel related belonged to the engine forum. :ohmy:

Anyways, I was thinking that JB weld would be the best solution as well. It looks like somebody tried some kind of adhesive on it before, but it didn't hold up.

Les, you mentioned the small groove in the piece that fits into the petcock, I saw that on mine, and I also figured that should be home to some kind of lock ring like CV shafts have on them on FWD cars.