Sanded off all of the overspray from my gastank (previous owner liked to spray-bomb stuff it seems). Once together, I noticed a small amount of fuel leaking. Not alot but enough to eat holes into the asphalt. Tightened the vacuum-bypass lines (this petcock had been modded), all connections and although o.k for a few days, decided to leak again. I then noticed that the leak was from the side selector plate...the one riveted in-place... so off went the rivets and I see that it is a squared "o" ring. Surely, every hardware store will have one! My thoughts are: as the 86 runs off of a fuel pump and there is no gravity feed problem threatening to fill my crank case with gas, I could just j.b. weld the plate and selector in the "reserve" position and have the petcock in permanent "on" with a 2nd on-off fitting after the petcock and before the pump for service and safety. Any concerns I should know about? The other option would be to have a plate made to adapt the vfr 2 bolt plate connection to a more conventional petcock but that would probably cause the petcock on-off to sit lower than the stock one and I don't want a hole in the side of my tank. Would look stoooopid.
Aren't you able to rebuild that petcock? I see Wemoto.com offers a kit for about $15.00 USD. Make sure it'll fit your bike, as the one I saw says it is for a 1985 model. https://wemoto.com/bikes/honda/vf_5...2_fully_faired/85/picture/fuel_tap_repair_kit
Sadly, no. This is for the removable section of the petcock. The x ring is under the riveted section. I have never sen kits with that proper x ring. I may have a flange made and adapt to a screw-on version as that would make life simple BUT that would make the tank mounted control redundant.