Well, in general, they make everyones life more difficult, but I'm referring to something specific.
So, my ATV has had a fuel leak for a while; and I just managed to get the time today to get around to fixing it.
Or rather, them.
I got the tank off, filled it with water, and discovered five separate leaks.
Oh joy.
There was a leak at the petcock, and a leak under each mounting bracket; and I'm pretty sure I know why.
Whatever genius assembled this thing, used an impact wrench to do so. I know this, because it took an impact wrench to get the damn things off. Some of the threaded brass inserts were turning in their holes. One of them under each bracket, and the petcock also had cracks leading from them.
Remember, we're talking about steel bolts into rubber mounts, and brass inserts into plastic. you should NEVER use an impact wrench on these things... Or you get stripping and cracking.
Long term, it needs a new tank (about $80); but my friend Jim wants to go riding tomorrow, so I figured, might as well try and do a temp fix.
So what I did was I took a ballcutter on the dremel and I routed out all the cracks, and all around the brass thread inserts. Then I used plastic welding epoxy to fill in the troughs I made.
I waited till the epoxy cured, then I spread a flexible fuelproof sealer around the bosses and cracks, and used gorilla tape to make a soft adhesive gasket (with more sealer against the metal) under each of the brackets and the petcock.
I filled the nut bosses with the sealer, tightened them down, and then bedded the brackets in more sealer.
Theoretically, this stuff should be soft, goopy, and flexible enough, that the little hairline cracks (which are hopefully repaired with the epoxy anyway) wont leak even if they open up again.
Not so sure about that, but we'll see.
