Leaking petrol tap

[bikerbob]

As  stop gap while you are waiting for new corks or new taps you could take the leaking tap off and dismantle the plunger and put a washer slightly smaller than the cork behind the cork then when you put it back together this will tighten up the cork, I have done this more than once and it works sometimes it has lasted for more than a year.

[Zander]

I recently gave up trying to stop the Ewart taps on another bike leaking and bought a set of viton O rings from eBay.  They weren't cheap at about ?5 per tap, but they worked.  Then I sold the bike, so I don't know if they're still working ok.

[bikerbob]

I have used the viton o rings and initially they worked fine but after a few months the taps were becoming harder to operate so had to go back to the corks.

[edboy]

corks are easy to change with a lathe. just clean up the flared part if the brass pin and then knock the pin through the cap. change cork then re-peen pin. 5 minutes work and some of you reading have better tool equipment than me.

[RoyC]

All fixed with a new cork.
No more leak but harder to pull on / off.
Thanks for all the help lads.

[TimK]

As long as it isn't split, a fix that doesn't require the cork to be removed from the  plunger is to  drop the plunger into a pot of boiling water. You need to keep an eye on it as the cork will expand quite quickly and you don't want it too big. A light smear of grease on the cork will help reassembly without damaging the cork. I did this as a temporary fix on a B31 and it still wasn't leaking 5 years later when I sold the bike.

[TimK]

Oops - just read previous posts - apologies for the repetition of steam/boiling water fixes!