sump drain cleaning

New PMAed drains are not that expensive. The last ones I bought were
about $10 ea. The arcraft parts vendors will not sell you replacement
o-rings for the drains, however, the o-rings are carried by industrial
distributors. Usually, a piece of crud imbeds itself into the rubber,
causing it to drip.

The biggest hassle is draining the tanks. Since the drains have a
standard NPT Pipe Thread, you can go to a hardware store and get a
pipe plug which can be used to temporarily plug the tank while you are
working on the quick drain. You will spill some gas, but if you have a
helper, he/she can do the "little boy with his finger in the dike"
(not dyke) until you get the plug in.

MikeM
Skylane '1MM
Pacer '00Z


On Sun, 10 Aug 2003 19:52:30 -0700, "Mike Noel"
wrote:

I have seen this discussed before, but couldn't come up with any hits on
Google. The sump drains on one wing an at the engine are running very
slowly, so I suspect they need to be cleaned. Also, the one that does drain
well continued to drip after I had drained a fuel sample until I had jiggled
it around for a bit. Interestingly (ominously?), the one that does drain
well gave me a few dark flecks. What is the best way to clean up these
drains, or would it be best to replace them?