Fuel Petcock Rebuilding - Not Fun

[Smithers]

Now this is the frustrating part. What I had seemed to be in pretty good condition but it was not drained when taken out of commission. Without a doubt the carb cleaning and the fuel petcock servicing were the worst parts of this whole sympathetic Benly Honda restoration. The parts all smell so bad that you have to clean this stuff outside in the wind so you can breath. The only way to clean these parts is in gasoline. You can use a solvent tank and waste a bunch of time or grab 2 cans of carb cleaner or gas and just get it over with quickly.

What really stinks is that I had to clean the parts while I was taking them apart. Be super careful when you disassemble everything in order to preserve the pieces to be used again. Forget the bowl seals as you will replace them with o-rings but the packing inside the fuel petcock MUST BE PRESERVED. I've never seen new packing pieces for sale and a whole new CA95 petcock assembly will easily demand a price of $200 on the Honda black market. After some painful cleaning and sweating the disassembly process this is what I had to work with:



As you can see I have cleaned these quite a bit! They were completely encrusted in old fuel varnish. You couldn't even tell what was inside once you removed the Honda petcock assembly from the tank. To get it off the tank you have to remove 3 VERY stubborn phillips screws that you will discover once you take off the fuel bowl. Clean the crap out of the screw head and grab your best T-Handle phillips tool if you want to have a chance at breaking them loose. They are long and enter the actually fuel tank so if there is rust in your tank you will not be able to back out the rusty portion of the screw threads. My spare petcock had to be removed from the rusty tank with my trusty Dremel tool. I used the small blades to cut the tops of the screws off. It was miserable work but I needed to see the condition of the parts.



I visited my friends transmission shop and consulted his BIG BOX of O-Rings! They have a box FILLED with every o-ring ever made... every size and every material. I found a couple that would work and snuck them out quickly. I don't think they invented o-rings yet when they produced these bikes or else they would have used them!! This should surely make a better seal than some original gaskets. And they were freeeeeeee

[Smithers]

Check out those old gaskets on the right hand side. Talk about old school! With a light wire brush the double layer fuel screen is easily cleaned for another 50 years of use. Make sure and sanitize all of these parts before you assemble them or your bike will stop running right in the middle of the intersection somewhere. If a tiny piece of sediment gets stuck in the carb seat or somewhere... your bike will just stop working. Clean, clean and clean some more! Spotless it must be.

When people ask me how I got the parts so clean... how i got the engine so clean I just laugh like a maniac and give a long sigh as I remember how my hands bled while scrubbing them all with all these nasty chemicals. <_<

Basically I didn't even want to take these pictures since my hands were so dirty and smelled so bad. My camera cost me some good $ and I don't like any of the newer models of Canon G series since the LCD's don't swivel anymore. So getting smelly fuel and oil on it really is something I would hate. I definitely wasn't going to stop in the middle of taking things apart and cleaning to take a couple pics. But I cleaned up my hands after all that nastiness was over to take these.

So do some surface prep on the tank...

[Smithers]

Thennnn I used black style Permatex because I couldn't find my new tube of copper. I'm growing impatient at this point so it's going together now. I have an o-ring sealing the top with the Parmatix black which will seal any surface inconsistencies. If the stock Honda paint was good enough to seal fuel with a regular gasket then the o-ring with Permatex will hold no problem.

Note the fiber washers on the three screws that hold the Benly 150 petcock on the tank. I didn't take apart the fuel connect for the fuel line because of the consequences if the washers fall apart. I just made sure that air could squirt through it and I'll be ok.



My favorite part is the o-ring. There is no way that it will let any fuel leak out. Check out the Honda CA95 gas tank all ready to go with the fuel switch. Of course the original packing inside the fuel selector isn't expected to actually stop all the fuel when turned off... but who cares. As long as it doesn't leak and it's clean that's all that matters. When the bike is parked for the winter the fuel can easily be drained at the tank. Any other time the fuel will just be left on. Damn I'm glad that it's done!!

[Smithers]

Ok this sucks. I fit everything up and had the battery on standby. Before I went through the hassle of installing the battery I decided to sprinkle a little fuel in the tank to see if it would leak. Well as expected those little disc gaskets inside the fuel selector switch leaked. Ahhh what a pain. I looked all around and the only rebuild parts I could find were in Europe. But I kept looking and a week later I tried on Ebay once again and found a seller. Can't wait to install them and get this little CA95 on the road!

[Smithers]

Now that I have the petcock rebuilding gaskets and parts in my hands it's time to get finish fixing this little nightmare. Leaking fuel = can't ride it. The parts in this assembly are very unique and this is the first time I've ever seen some replacement parts for this. The petcock came off the tank very easily this time, as it should. I laid out everything before I installed the new parts just to show how crusty the old stuff was again.



Just above the gold screen on the left we can see the lower and upper seals which sandwich the fuel selector disc (top very left). They were pretty hopeless. I pried the spring plate off the upper seal and affixed it to the new upper seal that you see on the right of the grey fuel line. The parts bag I ordered also had some new washers but I kept using the original ones that you see to the left. I did really like the new o-rings that came on the right. They were sized perfect and made a good seal.

[Smithers]

Fitting the spring plate on the new upper seal took some patience and a little grease to help the raw rubber squeeze in place. Here the Honda fuel petcock is now ready to go together for the last time.



And when it was all said and done I turned on the fuel selector switch with my fingers crossed. The fuel did seep out very slowly. I practically polished the metal fuel selector disc when I cleaned it so it just let fuel seep by for half a day before it stopped. This happens in plumbing and such as well. When you assemble new parts together in a system things need to settle in a little bit and expand and contract to make the tight fit. I just put a rag under the petcock and left it on for the rest of the day. The rag never fully saturated with fuel and the petcock works great. I've never had the luxury of a fresh newly rebuilt petcock. The selector disc slides off/ reserve/ on very smoothly. I'm glad I don't have to work on it anymore.

Just as an afterthought: A month ago on Ebay I saw a whole bag of real Honda spring plates for sale that would be exactly what I needed to mate to the brand new inner seals. I simply scraped off the residue on my old one and re-used it. A new one would have been nice but not needed. The whole bag of maybe 20 pieces sold for around $60 so I wouldn't be surprised if the auction winner relisted them one-by-one at a later date.

[Smithers]

UPDATE!! I saw that the fuel petcock plates are back up on Ebay. They are item# 270182210169. Here is the link: http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAP...ARL:MOTORS:1123

It's a pretty interesting collection of parts. The auction is for 20 pieces. Could use 5 but 20, nah. When I rebuilt mine I just scraped the plate off and bent the fingers to provide more resistance to seal the parts when it is placed back together against the fuel tank.

[Smithers]

Now it's December and just wanted to update the fuel situation. The petcock no longer leaks at all. It smells like fuel and always will. I left the selector to the "ON" position for the last month and it is holding the fuel inside just fine. The carb is another story and it's the reason the bike didn't start up. Time to talk about this in a new section.

[Smithers]

Use that black Permatex gasket sealer stuff! I have never been successful using any cork gaskets to seal oil or fuel surfaces... well maybe on some old 70's V8 engine oil pans but that's it. Don't torque down so hard on the components that you put gasket sealer on until they are dry. Just clamp down on them with a little pressure so the gasket sealer can form and then in another day torque them down some more to really seal em. Not too much though! They used Phillips to fasten everything on these engines which = low torque, but firm. Like PVC and plumbing fittings - low torque or you will promote deformation of seals, rings or gaskets.

Now when you assemble everything and put fuel in it a day or two later watch closely for leaks and tighten down anything that might be leaking. I feel your pain. It's very frustrating! I have two of these style petcocks in service right now. One is my black CA160 and the other is this blue CA95 Benly 150. The black bike is completely original and works great! The blue bike is the rebuilt one you see in this thread and works very well too.



The one that you see above leaked when I first opened up the fuel and let if flow. I had a feeling that the gaskets would swell and stop the leaking and I was right. I put a bowl under it over night and later on the next day the leaking had stopped from the fuel "on and off" lever. It was leaking a very tiny amount out of the discs that are sandwiched together inside. I thought that the metal disc that is connected to the lever might have been cleaned off too smooth by myself. I'm not sure.

One this is for sure I WISH I could go back in time and watch them assemble these parts and engines!! The had to have had all sorts of dudes just slaving over them to get every one to Mr. Honda's specifications. Labor back in those days in Japan was SUPER cheap so they had tons and tons of people helping put these things together and inspecting them.

[nustar1]

Hello, I just got a petcock rebuild kit from Retrobikes and I'm about to put it in I saw you instructions and they look very helpful. I was wondering what kind of permatex you used. I Went to the auto store and none of the options filled me with confidence that they would handle exposure to gasoline. The heavy duty ones specifically said to avoid it. I'm a new when it comes to some of this stuff so your advice would be appreciated. If you could give me a part number or a picture from the web that would be helpful also. I've gone on enough but thank you for your time and help in advance.

Joe

[aaron7]

I've got the same Retrobikes kit and I'm going to tackle this soon. I second the question nustar1 posted.