Water level taps

Hi,
Can anyone give me advice on getting the water level taps on the tender to seal. I have tried lapping them in as Steve suggests in the instructions, but to no avail.

I just used T cut or any brass polish to lap them in once they were a reasonable fit with the hole in the middle. I found watching telly whilst I was doing it helped as it is terminally boring twisting it back & forth a million times!

Mine were too oval to be used at all.

Mine were a bit, just squeezed them in the vice 'till they looked round & carried on. The metal is quite soft & I reasoned that they were round when they were cut so had to have gone oval afterwards.

Thanks guys, will try the vice trick.

Hi guys,
I’ve got 2 new taps but they don’t seal, I’ve tried using lapping paste and brassy but still leak.
Any suggestions would be good. Or do I need another new tap?

I gave up in the end and just blocked them so they didn't leak, then installed a level indicator on the man stand.

Bryanh9904 wrote:Hi guys,
I’ve got 2 new taps but they don’t seal, I’ve tried using lapping paste and brassy but still leak.
Any suggestions would be good. Or do I need another new tap?

I keep meaning to do what I've seen others do which is fit two right angled fittings and put a bit of clear pipe between them so I know how much water is in the tender.

I had no success making my two taps seal either. My solution was to find a piece of small diameter PVC tubing and use it to connect between the two tap spouts. (I rotated the lower tap so that the spouts face each other).
The taps are left permanently Open and the tube provides a sight gauge.
Only downside is that periodically (about twice during the rally season) the tube will become opaque due to UV degradation and will need replacing to keep the water level visible.
No hardship as this stuff is really cheap.
Did try Silicon tubing as an alternative because this is UV stable material, but without much success because the silicon tubing I managed to find starts life quite opaque.
Chris