The outies have a small pipe end sticking out of the tank and will accept a Honda 500 petcock as a great fix. (See Toolbox articles on this.) Before I bought my bike I thought there was only one type of tap and bought the Honda. One of our members in Canada got it at a discount when it did not fit. I got a lesson.

The innies just have a threaded hole in the tank. There are at least two types of threads used here and maybe more. One type will fit American hardware store taps. See Dan’s article in the toolbox. He actually ran a hardware store petcock for some time. You don’t have a reserve doing this but it will work.

I think one of the best fixes if your tank was not painted would be to install another bung on the other side of the tunnel. These are easily available for Harleys in custom work and would just weld in. Then you run one side dry and switch to the other. You would just need a crossover tube on the taps.

The other type of tap that is common for an innie is the one my red bike has. There must be a good substitute somewhere from another bike but I have not seen it yet, other than the rare Dong Hai petcock.

Awhile back Fred posted a picture of a tap he had mounted that he found in China. He only had one. Gerald then identified it as a Dong Hai and said he and Marcus had some. Marcus was kind enough to search his garage for one for me. This is not the first time Marcus has searched for parts for me either. After a trade of a liquid for a tap it came in the mail. Upon receiving it I found it was going to be darn near the lifetime type tap I wanted. It is a simple brass tap with only a few parts.

• So this is how I rectified this and what you should do to prepare yours before fitting in the first place.

• Shut off the tap and run the engine until it stalls to drain the fuel lines.

• Drain the tank, please use the reserve position as otherwise you will spill a significant amount of gas. This makes you feel really smart.

• Remove the fuel lines.

• Unscrew the tap.

• Now if you are servicing a tight tap, like I was or preparing a new one for service, mount it in your vice with the cotter pin facing you.

• Remove the cotter pin with a pair of side cutters, first straight it, then use the side cutters to grip it and pull it out.

• Carefully remove the washer, the rubber cover, and the spring.

• I marked the handle but I relay did not need to. It is going to be in whatever direction it points.

• Remove the handle.

• Using a fine polishing compound apply some on the mating surfaces on the inner part of the handle and then work the handle around in the tap as it is used in service. Don’t go too far here, just until it feels freer.

• Clean all the polishing compound off and try it. You may want to do this a couple of times. If you take too much off it becomes difficult to seal and in service it will loosen up.

• Clean the tap and handle thoroughly. You don’t want to polish your valves with this stuff. I used spray intake cleaner and then washed in gas and blew it out with air.

• Use antisieze compound in a very thin layer on the mating surfaces. It should just look like you painted them in thin silver. Just put it on the handle side as you don’t want enough in the tap to be able to come off in the fuel. Wipe off any excess.

• Install the handle into the tap. Put everything in the order it came out.

• You can adjust the tap in a couple of ways. One is to use a thinner cotter which I did, or add or remove washers to load the spring.

• Reinstall the tap on the tank and hook up the fuel lines. As you can see from the pictures I like to use liquid Teflon on all mounting surfaces. It seals well and will remove easily later.

• The last thing I do is to add a piece of fuel line to the tap handle to give it a finished look. The fuel line that came stock on my bike fits fine.

• The end result is an easily moving tap that should last many years as the sealing surfaces are brass to brass.