Dellorto Float Flooding

[mattcfish]

I left about a half gallon of gas on the ground at my last motorcycle club meeting. A little embarrassing to say the least. Glad no one was smoking or a whole line of vintage bikes would have gone up in a fireball.
Turns out one of my floats filled up with gas and doesn't float anymore. I know, I should have closed the petcocks, I almost always do.
What is especially vexing is that this particular float was only 1 year old and not exactly cheap. Luckily I had saved one of the old floats and was able to reinstall it. The only reason I had replaced it in the first place was that it was a little heavier than spec. The question is, are new floats for PHM's as good as the old ones? Is there something in fuel these days that is dissolving them more rapidly? Anyone else suffering from flooding floats?

[Kurt in S.A.]

Were the original floats brass...is that what you meant when they filled up? /2 floats were originally brass and they can work harden and crack, even just sitting in the package; they can crack and take on fuel, sinking to the bottom. Vech now sells plastic floats as a replacement.

Kurt in S.A.

[mattcfish]

Were the original floats brass...is that what you meant when they filled up? /2 floats were originally brass and they can work harden and crack, even just sitting in the package; they can crack and take on fuel, sinking to the bottom. Vech now sells plastic floats as a replacement.

Kurt in S.A.

Nope, plastic. The interesting thing is that there is no apparent hole in the float. It's just completely full of gas in one of the chambers. Did R90S carbs originally come with brass floats? If so..... unobtainable today. The new floats are a translucent white in color, even after one year. The old float, which I'm using now, is a solid yellowish color.
I'm worried about the other carb, it's also got the newer float. Maybe it's just a fluke, but I'll be checking it.

[Kurt in S.A.]

Where did you get these floats? I don't know much about the Dells...didn't realize they came with plastic hollow floats. I mentioned that Vech sells plastic floats for the /2s...I bought the first version of those floats but they swell slightly, causing sticking problems. He now sells version two which appears to be working fine.

I'd go back to where you got them and try to get some info on what could be happening.

Kurt in S.A.

[mattcfish]

Where did you get these floats? I don't know much about the Dells...didn't realize they came with plastic hollow floats. I mentioned that Vech sells plastic floats for the /2s...I bought the first version of those floats but they swell slightly, causing sticking problems. He now sells version two which appears to be working fine.

I'd go back to where you got them and try to get some info on what could be happening.

Kurt in S.A.

They're OEM Dellorto floats. Got to check my receipts to see where they came from. Funny you should mention the swelling and sticking issue. That's what the original (yellowish) floats used to do. I had to remove a little material from the ends of the pivot tube to keep them from sticking.

[Garnet]

I once tried to coat /2 brass floats with Seal All in a hope to repair them. No luck, probably because the hollow brass had too much movement around the hairline cracks for the Seal All to hold.

I wonder if Seal All would help to keep gas additives out of new solid plastic floats. Never seen hollow plastic floats, but I live a sheltered life.

[Dave Backmarker]

Matt,
I've replaced the yellow plastic floats with the white translucent ones and happily the only problem I had was having the the 10% Ethanol gas swell the floats enough to require me to shave a little material off around the pivots. A great source of Ducati and Dellorto parts, documentation and advice is Bevel Heaven in California at: http://www.bevelheaven.com
Steve stocks rebuild kits and nice billet bits for the Dellortos.

DaveM
1975 R90S
2000 R1100RT

[mattcfish]

Yes, I've used Bevel Heaven a lot. I also buy from MG Cycle http://www.mgcycle.com/index.php?cPath= ... 0bcc784a71
That's where I got the floats from. I contacted them to see what they can do. 1 year on a float doesn't seem right, should get at least a decade on them. They use lots of Alcohol in the gas around here during the winter. You would think modern floats could handle it.