abandon the ball valve?

A ball valve on a boiler and saw a little leak at the stem nut. Tighten it and no more leak. This was by a plumber who soldered everything. I want to abandon this valve and put a sharkbite above it. It is hot water pipe, but I think I saw a sharkbite ball valve for boilers. Reason for not replacing the valve is that there is outlet valve (for draining or refilling) under the ball valve and melting one joint feels like it will undo several joints in the area, and they are brass body tees and etc. I've resoldered melted joint before but feels as if the sure thing would be to not mess with good joints.


My question. I don't know the brand of this ball valve. If I tighten the stem nut, as I've done with the packing nuts on regular washer valves, can I abandon this valve and expect it to be leakfree for 2-3 decades?


2nd. I've seen washer or gate valves that were abandoned by plugging the opening of the main stem nut. That is, remove the nut that holds the threaded part of the stem. Not the packing nut above it. When one was removed, it looked like 3/4" threaded female but the blackpipe plug did not work. Wondering if there was a standard for these parts?