The Amazing Shrinking and Swelling Gasket

[jusgus]

Recently I disassembled and cleaned the cabs on Billie, My 1980 R65. When I removed the cork gasket for the bowl I remembered having had one that dried out and become unusable. With this in mind, I placed the gasket in a dish with some 3in1 oil. Just then we had company come visit and it was several hours before I was able to finish the carbs and reassemble them. When it was time to reinstall the bowl gasket I found that it had shrunk and would not fit in the grove on the carb body. My concern was that I didn’t have a replacement gasket and it takes a while to make a new one. While I contemplated the problem I thought that I recalled having a cork gasket swell and become too big after being soaked in gasoline. I cleaned the oil off the gasket and immersed it in a dish of gasoline. Within a few minutes the gasket had swollen enough to fit in the carb body and I reinstalled the bowl with no problem. It seems that cork gaskets swell in gas and shrink in oil and I thought that might be helpful to someone else.