sediment bowl packing ?

[Bill Decker]

Fiddling around since there isn't any snow...the packing around the base of the shutoff screw on all of my junque box sediment bowls is either missing, or crumbling. Any ideas on something to repack it with? O-ring? Pipe dope? I see a lot of the replacement bowls online state "not for use with ethanol fuels"..which is tought to do in these parts to begin with. I'd like to salvage one of the half dozen I have than wait for an import replacement to show up, no matter how cheap they are.

[chzuck]

I have some graphite rope packing that I use. Not sure where I ever got it, but it was probably for the old style water spigots. Mine consists of 2 or 3 cords twisted around each other. One of the cords is just the right size. Try a hardware store's plumbing section and see what packing they have for the older spigots.
An O-ring may work, but it would probably need to be made of Viton rubber. Common O-rings are made of Buna N and I would think today's nasty gas would deteriorate them in a hurry.

[Bill Decker]

Thanks , Charlie. I'll head on over to the old hardware, than heavens that he is still a bulk-bin sort of place, and not all blister packed.

[Paul B]

1/8 "O" ring from the plumbing dept at Lowes/Home Depot etc. Works for me.

[Farmallgray]

As Charlie said use Graphite faucet packing. Don't get the teflon packing, it doesn't work well at all.

[chzuck]

Thanks, farmallgray, for mentioning not using the teflon. I am sure today's gas would make short work of that and turn it to goo.