- Why are there different materials and colours for your o-rings and seals?
- Can I just buy these o-rings at my local suppler?
- Can I just buy the parts that are in the carb kits separately?
- How do I buy online?
- I placed my order. When will I receive confirmation?
- When I click the "Add to Cart" button it takes me to the PayPal cart page, but it is written in Thai.
- How do I know if the item I want to buy is in stock?
- I don't want to use PayPal. Is there any other way to pay?
- Why are there different materials and colours for your o-rings and seals?
For the simple reason that we choose the best product for the application. Float bowl seals, for example, need to have excellent resistance to swell and to retain their strength and volume. Therefore we use FKM with a high percentage of Fluorine as it meets all of those requirements and we have performed our own tests to confirm this.
For most o-rings we choose FKM, commonly known Viton®, as it has a high resistance to permeation and chemical attack by alcohol, pure ethanol, and blends of ethanol with hydrocarbon fuel. It is also resistant to stale fuel, UV light and has a longer shelf life.
For float bowl seals we use a high fluorine content (70%) terpolymer grade of FKM. This has the best resistance to fuel.
Here is the best research that we have been able to find on the comparisons between various elastomers and ethanol blend fuels; Intermediate Ethanol Blends Infrastructure Materials Compatibility Study: Elastomers, Metals, and Sealants Viton is a fluorocarbon, and all of the standard seals in motorcycle carburettors are NBR, with the possible exception of the float needle which usually has a Viton tip (funny that). If you do not want to read it all, this is from the summary.The fluoroelastomers (fluorocarbons and fluorosilicone) showed the best retention of baseline properties of the elastomers studied.
5.2.5 NBR
The eight NBR samples (and polyurethane) showed a pronounced increase in volume swell and softening when exposed to fuels containing ethanol. Exposures to Fuel C resulted in volume expansion approaching 20%. When exposed to the ethanol-blended test fluids, the NBRs swelled by more than 30%. Likewise, the hardness values dropped an additional 10 points when ethanol was added to the test fluid. When all of the samples (including Fuel C exposures) were dried, 8% to 14% of the mass was lost and the accompanying shrinkage was between 10% and 18%. The dried hardness was increased 5 to 16 points, indicating that embrittlement had occurred. NBR was one of only two elastomer types (the other being neoprene) that exhibited significant embrittlement in the dried state, indicating that plasticizer components were being removed by the test fuels. . . . .
An OEM seal made from NBR that is suffering from embrittlement. - Can I just buy these o-rings at my local suppler?
No, almost all of the o-rings used in Mikuni and Keihin carburettors are proprietary sizes.
- Can I just buy the parts that are in the carb kits separately?
No
- How do I buy online?
Goods can be purchased by using the PayPal add to cart button. In most cases shipping is free and is by air mail. If you would like a different service then you will have to pay for the difference in cost. We can give very competitive rates for express services like FedEx. If you do not want to use PayPal then contact us by email and so that you can pay by Wise or Western Union transfer.
- I placed my order. When will I receive confirmation?
We do not send order confirmation emails. If you pay by PayPal, your purchase is processed on the PayPal website, not ours. This gives you the maximum level of security. If you have received confirmation from PayPal of your purchase then we have received your payment. If you have paid by another method then we will email you to confirm that we have received the payment. We usually ship within three business days of receiving your order. A confirmation email that your order has been shipped is sent at that time. If you have not received it then please check your spam folder as email from Asia is often treated as spam. Please email us directly if you have not received your confirmation. Email details are on the contact page.
- When I click the "Add to Cart" button it takes me to the PayPal cart page, but it is written in Thai.
Our web site is written in English and hosted in the USA. The PayPal web site is controlled by PayPal, not us. In response to this issue PayPal replied.
Yes, if you don't set the locale code, the language will be displayed by the customer's browser setting. If they didn't set the language for their browsers, the default language is US. To avoid incorrect language displayed, please ask your customers to set the preferred language in their browsers. How to set the language for IE, i searched one guide for your reference: Change your Internet Explorer language settings
If you are still having problems then please contact us and we will help you to solve this issue. - How do I know if the item I want to buy is in stock?
If you can see the "AddToCart" button for the item that you wish to buy, then it is in stock.
- I don't want to use PayPal. Is there any other way to pay?
We suggest using Wise to make a direct bank transfer. Contact us for further details.
For what we consider mission critical o-rings, we use Fluorosilicone (FVMQ). This elastomer is mostly used in aerospace and has the best temperature range and returns to its original size regardless of how long it is exposed to fuel.