My brother in law cleaned out the gas tank a couple of years ago and did not put fuel into it until recently. When he cleaned out the tank it was pretty clean and had no rust. A few days ago he filled up the tank and when he turned on the valve the fuel pumped through the system great. When he shut off the gas the petcock valve started leaking. After moving the valve back and forth a few times it stopped leaking and has not leaked since. We cleaned up all of the gas on the pilot and the floor but I am worried about the Pilot being in my garage because my natural gas water heater is out there. Do you think it is likely to start leaking again? What do you think might have caused this? Has anyone ever had this happen to them? Thank you for any input.

Go to search box and type in "fuel tank leaking where switch is" and there is a thread on the internals of this switch if you are interested. IMO if it leaked once it will leak again. Just my 2cents.

I forget the code for the gas water heaters off the floor think the burner has to be 18" off the floor in a garage?

I was told that the have to be 18" off the floor in case their is a gas leak like the tank on your automobile or in your case a ATV guess the concentration of fumes happens 18" and below?

Do a little research on installing a water heater in a garage.

Good time to check to see if all your smoke detectors are working while your thinking of it, not that you will need them they are just one of them often forgotten items that needs to be maintained.

I would drain the gas tank until you find a solution. I just don't want to see any fires so just saying.

I also saw that petcock post just here recently as well

Canadian Oddy and Stix I did see the post but it was for a 350 and that is a different petcock valve. I did think of that description though because if something got between the seals and the o-ring and then was flushed out it might be why it was not leaking now.

Hoser yes my heater burner is over 24" off the ground. I still worry about things though. Thanks for the concern but yes all of my smoke detectors are checked seasonally. I think they work too damn good because every time we cook a steak the damn thing goes off. And no my wife is not burning the steak. LMAO

What I was curious about was if people thought that sitting dry for so long might have caused the seals inside the valve to shrink a tiny bit and then the later contact with the fuel swelled them back to their previous size. I also forgot to mention that the O-rings between the valve and the tank were new. I know that this sounds weird because from my experience when a petcock valve leaks it will stay leaking and not fix itself. I have never had this happen in my lifetime.

If I had one out of the tank i would take it apart to take pics and view internals, darn :( I ride in the worst sandy conditions and it always sounds like im dragging sandpaper across tinfoil when I adjust the petcock but i have not yet experienced leaks, knock knock

This one has very low hours. My brother in law has not used it much and he is the original owner.

My first pilot that I owned sounded gritty like that but never leaked. I used to ride a lot in the sand also. This is just confusing me. I was thinking of buying this pilot off of him and I don't want a problem because these parts are no longer available. And no one seems to have NOS of this item.

This happens to me all the time with the ATC's and TRX's now being 20+ years old....first the petcock on the pilot is from a TRX350D 1986-1989....they sometimes come up on ebay but not very often these days......you could buy a used one but still have the same problem........but easiest way is to rebuild......take off the petcock, drill out the rivets buy this kit from ebay http://www.ebay.com/itm/HONDA-FUEL-PETC ... dd&vxp=mtr
replace the rivets with the bolts in the kit and you have a rebuildable petcock.......

Thanks for the info PilotPete I am adding some info to help with future searches.

Pilot petcock valve rebuild
Pilot fuel valve rebuild

HONDA FUEL PETCOCK REBUILD GASKET KIT TRX350 TRX350D FL400R FOREMAN/FOURTRAX 350
Honda produced this petcock riveted shut so you can't replace the packing gasket and the OEM petcock is now obsolete. We have finally solved this problem! With a little bit of know-how, you can rebuild your stock petcock to new specs.

You will have to drill off the rivet heads and tap 3mm x .5mm treads for the Allen head stainless steel cap screws that are included.

This kit includes:
Packing gasket
Two Allen Head Stainless Steel Screws

If you are not experienced in doing this type of work, do not purchase this.

Some applications include:

TRX350 86'-89'
FL400R 90'

Pilotpete1 I cannot thank you enough. I was hoping that someone would know something out there. In my 40+ years I have often ran into problems like this and I always say when there is a will there is a way.

I was also thinking it would be great to add the exact size of the two back O-rings to this post. Does anyone have any of these that they could measure? I already installed mine on the tank before I thought about checking the size.

Has anyone done this yet? I drilled out a leaky petcock valve to prep it for this rebuild kit and found that it has an x-ring on the lever to prevent gas from leaking out the front of the valve. I would like to replace that also and it does not say that it is included in the rebuild kit. Does anyone know what size it is so that I can get a replacement?

Could you please post up a picture or two? I also bought one of these kits but have not needed to use it yet. would like to see the valve in pieces. Not sure what an x-ring is. Does it look like this?

I wonder if lee could get any information on it?

The petcock is a 'black box'.
I have no information about what is on the inside.

That aside, an O-ring will operate the same as a X-ring in a low pressure situation.
If the X-ring has lasted 24 years figure the o-ring will do half that at least (provided the materials are the same).

Thanks for the update Lee. I agree a o-ring of the same size should work.

you can get X rings at McMaster Carr, Buna or Viton both work for petroleum. not too expensive but you have to buy in prepackaged quantities.

Read this and thought I would share.

X-Rings, also known as Quad-Rings®, can be used in a wide variety of static and dynamic sealing applications.

The four-lobed design provides twice the sealing surface in comparison to a standard o-ring. The double-seal action requires less squeeze to maintain an effective seal. This reduction in squeeze means less friction and improved seal life.

X-Ring parting lines are between the lobes, away from the sealing surface, thus eliminating the problems of leakage often resulting from a parting line's irregular surface as found on an O-Ring.

X-Rings are designed to outperform a standard O-Ring in rotary seal applications. The four-lobed configuration creates a more stable seal avoiding spiral twisting. This allows the use of a more narrow groove width than a standard O-Ring groove, but can also be used in a standard O-Ring groove.

Buy the packaged X rings in the bulk package sell them on this site to Pilot owners, put me down for one lol

I'll buy 1 also. The big questions is what size to buy?????

MAS can you measure the one you have out if you haven't already?

Hold up on everything.

The kit rubber is total crap. I am returning it to the seller. I has so much plasticizers in it that my whole house now smells like Harbor Freight Tools. He is not cutting them out with precision either. I am looking into buying the better rubber and punches and making them myself. I will let everyone know more soon. rmesser if I was you I would return your kit but that is your choice. If I do make a kit myself I will also include the two rear O-rings as well as the x-ring.

Taking apart the pilot petcock valve.

Don't be nervous about drilling and tapping the holes my wife did it. LMAO You must use a drill press. The drill size we used was 3/32". We did not have any problems tapping the part using this drill. It took some time filing off the rivet head. Once you remove the plate you can use some 600 grit sandpaper to deburr the part of the rivets that stick up so that the plate will be able to go back on easily.

plasticizers??? That's what that smell is? Everything from china smells like that shit!! I thought that smell was from a coating they sprayed on everything because it had to travel across the ocean.

I wish. My father is a chemist and he complained about that since I was little about many things. I remember specifically bike grips. They used to add no more than 5% but as we all know things have changed. Its over 30% in some items now to lower production costs. That is why a lot of rubber items no longer last.

I am starting a new post for this viewtopic.php?f=41&t=14557