Ugh. Petcock diagnosis

[puskrat]

thank you guys. I trusted the collective enough on mikuni jets, and I saw comments, maybe beardslee's about KL petcock kits. been weighing the non - vac cocks. theyre getting weightier

[Rickrod3]

I too got K&L repair kits for my e and the plunger with O ring was to big to fit into the slot. I just ditched the whole vacuum style and went with off/on pingle style petcocks. No leaks no issues at all now.

Plus one hundred to that.
Pingle's are pricey but it's worth it not to have to worry about gas leaking in the garage, flooded carbs, contaminated oil.
I suspect this problem to be the biggest reason people have given up on these bikes.

IMHO. Its a great bike and worth it.

[ViperRon]

I have a 1980 G model and got my kits from Mikes about 4 years ago and they were fine can't remember the name exact but were sudcco or something like that.

[dbeardslee]

I too got K&L repair kits for my e and the plunger with O ring was to big to fit into the slot. I just ditched the whole vacuum style and went with off/on pingle style petcocks. No leaks no issues at all now.

+1 I went around and around with Betsy's stock petcocks when I first got her, and just could not get the darned things to work properly. I finally just got rid of 'em and replaced them with universal petcocks from Parts N More. They've been doing the job for seven or eight years now, and I've never regretted the change. They flow when I want 'em to flow, and don't flow when I don't want 'em to, and they don't leak. What's not to like?

[mack]

kits

I too got K&L repair kits for my e and the plunger with O ring was to big to fit into the slot. I just ditched the whole vacuum style and went with off/on pingle style petcocks. No leaks no issues at all now.

[ViperRon]

Two main functions of the petcocks are opening the seal where the o ring and plunger go into the other petcock frame and sealing when vacuum is released.
They will leak internally if anything causes the plunger to stick open or O ring to not seal. If the outside frame is warped or corroded the outside gasket can not seal and it will leak. The wafer spring is all that keeps the internal gasket sealed when the handle is turned this will allow gas to go around plunger and also leak outside. There are a few rebuild pictorials here on XS11 that show how to polish and reshape the petcocks.

[donebysunday]

K&l

kits to be avoided are carb kits, jets in particular. The petcock kits, I've heard no problems. Put them in and see what you get ? Clean them well and watch that you don't get that wave washer under the front cover pinched.

[puskrat]

When I get these effing F carbs back in my G, the next step is the petcocks. I have both off and one completely apart. I have two rebuild kits. After I ordered them from evilbay (still love that term), i saw one of the problems people have with petcocks is they rebuilt them with K&L rebuild kits. After I read that, I received my kits and saw the K&L packaging. Imagine my joy.

Advice? Are there good parts in here? Are there parts I should assume to be junk and pitch without hesitation? I've recently found a new source for NOS parts and they have no fuel cocks. I know my left fuel cock was bad because when i dissassembled things, gasoline (90% ish gasoline) ran out. and my 3 & 4 carbs were shot. Is there any further way to diagnose what failed? The rubber parts were pretty much all dissolved, so I know they gotta be redone. I'm going back to mine the forums some more because I have seen a lot of discussion on this topic, and hate asking a question that is already answered.
I will check back to see what wisdom accumulates in this thread, too, though