• Hi Guest!
    You can help ensure that British Car Forum (BCF) continues to provide a great place to engage in the British car hobby! If you find BCF a beneficial community, please consider supporting our efforts with a subscription.
    There are some perks with a member upgrade!
    **Upgrade Now**
    (PS: Subscribers don't see this gawd-aweful banner
Tips
Tips

Stromberg bowl plug gasket leaking

Share this page

G

Guest

Guest
Guest
Offline
What is with these Strombergs? I have "new" triples and the center carb's float plug gasket is leaking, badly. This is insane. Is there anything one can do, short of just replacing the O-ring?

Bill
 
You might want to check the float level too. If the carb is overflowing, then fuel may be running down the side to the lowest point - the plug.
 
Got the plugs out of my ZS's with out taking anything apart and replaced the o-rings by matching up the rings at the parts store. I think cleaners added to the gas shorten the live of the o-rings. I ran the carbs on a rebuild about 6 years with out any problems, then after it sat, I used some "cleaners" added to the gasoline and had problems with the o-rings. (The additives made the rubber gas lines brittle too) I felt lucky to be able to pull the caps out and just replace the o-rings with about $1 worth of parts.
 
I checked with the guy that rebuilt my carbs (Gary Martin in South Dakota) and he said that he started using Vitron o-rings in stead of Neoprene and has found that fuel is attacking this material, unfortunately. So, I will just switch back to old-fashioned rubber o-rings. Problem solved, I hope.


Bill
 
how does Vitron compare to Buna-N/Nitrile ? I've measured the size of these o-rings and you can get 100 of these in Buna-N for about 2 bucks from Enco.

Here's the specs:

it is a #10 o-ring 1/4"id 3/8"od 1/16" cross section.

Enco part# 240-2526

www.use-enco.com

McMaster-Carr has 'em in 8 different flavors:

Buna-N
Viton
Silicone
Neoprene
PTFE
EPDM(Ethylene Propylene)
Polyurethane
Kalrez Perfloroelastomer(#4079)

so what's going to give the best resistance to modern fuels? They all seem to have about the same hardness rating (PTFE is a little softer) so I'd assume they'd all work in our application. I'm back to o-rings because the cork ones being sold now started leaking again after 6 months. Sorry - I'm using SU's- they have cork seals but the O-ring that goes in the Stromberg is the same size and is used as a substitute (Moss: 365-420)

(kalrez is 25 bucks for one o-ring by the way - it better come with a nubile red-head to install it for me at that price) /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif
 
Back
Top