YZ125 PSA: Check your petcocks on older bikes.

[Boondoxed]

The petcock on my 98 YZ125 always dripped when in off position, so I decided to take it apart and clean it. What I found was pretty awful. 

There was a gross amount of hard, encrusted green/white gasoline corrosion and buildup inside the channels that saw fuel. The fine mesh filter had some nasty gunk building up around it. I regret not taking pictures before I cleaned it all off. I kind of expected it to be gunked up, but not this bad.

After removing all the corrosion, it exposed pitting of the petcock body and channels. This is after the micron screen filter, meaning any of this buildup or metal debris might make it into the carbeurator or even worse the engine.  I went ahead and ordered a new assembly off Amazon. Im not an expert and I'm not claiming everyone's fuel petcock looks like the surface of the moon but if you have an older bike and weren't always in charge of which fuel it's seen, it can't hurt to check. 

 

Edited May 23, 2020 by Boondoxed

[Smoking 2's]

11 hours ago, Boondoxed said:

The petcock on my 98 YZ125 always dripped when in off position, so I decided to take it apart and clean it. What I found was pretty awful. 

There was a gross amount of hard, encrusted green/white gasoline corrosion and buildup inside the channels that saw fuel. The fine mesh filter had some nasty gunk building up around it. I regret not taking pictures before I cleaned it all off. I kind of expected it to be gunked up, but not this bad.

After removing all the corrosion, it exposed pitting of the petcock body and channels. This is after the micron screen filter, meaning any of this buildup or metal debris might make it into the carbeurator or even worse the engine.  I went ahead and ordered a new assembly off Amazon. Im not an expert and I'm not claiming everyone's fuel petcock looks like the surface of the moon but if you have an older bike and weren't always in charge of which fuel it's seen, it can't hurt to check. 

 

That's probably from that awesome gas we have now-a-days ☹️

Looks like any petcock from a 1992 up 125 or 250 will fit fine and only $25 ?

[Familyman6000]

That’s the worst corrosion I’ve seen inside one that came off a running bike. Usually it’s just the gasket that goes bad. 
Feels good to find and fix easy issues like this. 

[tracymoto]

Welcome to the ethanol boondoggle...

[The Inquisitor]

And obviously clean the tank and more importantly pull the carb see whats in the float bowel etc.