Fuel Quick drain Valve Option

[daberges]

I have had a slow drip from both quick drain valves (CAV-110) on my 9A.
They seem to take it in turn to drip - usually only discovered if she gets lonely and I have not visited her for a few days - by a clean patch with a blue ring around it.

The fuel quality is good - I do the preflight drains for water and grit.

I am wondering if the seals degraded over the building time.

Is there a better drain valve out there - or should I just replace with new?

Regards Duncan

 

[dan]

The O-ring seal sells for a whopping 18 cents. http://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalog/appages/safair.php Worth replacing the O-ring time to time if the old ones dry out and start cracking. Otherwise those valves are easy to clean. No reason ever to replace 'em imho unless it's truly mechanically failing.

Just remove the drain, roll the O ring off, clean the assembly, put the O ring back on, and reinstall with some fuelube on the threads.

 

[rvbuilder2002]

Even being as careful as you possibly can there is usually a small amount of undesirable foreign matter left in the fuel tanks which gets washed to the low point over time.
When you sump the tanks, little specks can get stuck at the o-ring. The smallest little thing can cause it to start to drip.

Like Dan said, clean it and put it back together.

After all of the junk has been flushed out this will happen much less often.

 

[kentb]

Hello Duncan

I have had the same problem with both my drain fittings. As Scott said, a new tank will have small stuff getting next to the seal and cause a little leaking. I drained about 1 gallon of fuel out through the drain working it up and down as I did. This seams to have solved the drip problem.


Kent