Citabria Metal shavings in fuel

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kubark42

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I've noticed metal shavings in the fuel on muy 7ECA. I cleaned out the gascolator and found a small amount of metal shavings in the bottom. Nothing on the screen, so unlikely anything got any farther downstream. I cleaned it all out, and drained some fuel, noticing the metal stopped appearing. Now a few weeks later I'm noticing small flakes again when I'm draining from the rear-manifold sump.

Before

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After


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  • Where can metal be coming from in the fuel system?
  • Should I be concerned or is this just something which got in the tank once, perhaps from refueling, and is now working its way out?
 

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Last edited:
To the best of my knowledge, there's no fuel pump here. It's a simple 7ECA, so has a gravity-fed carburetor. The metal particles lie between the rear manifold drain and the fuel tanks.

Here's the relevant page from a 1974 service manual.

Screen Shot 2021-06-18 at 3.12.55 PM.png

I do see in the same service manual that the 7KCAB has a fuel pump, which would be expected (and necessary) as it's fuel-injected.

I'm making the presumption that my 1998 7ECA and the 1974 7ECA have the same fuel system. However, since I'm seeing the metal flakes upstream of the gascolator, I'm relatively sure that even if there were a mechanical fuel pump, it would be in the engine compartment and not between the fuel tanks and the rear manifold drain.
 
you can buy a funnel with a built in filter or maybe drain the fuel through coffee filters? I can't imagine it is being produced by your fuel system though. more likely put in there when fueling.

do you always buy fuel from the same place? maybe they should check their filters.
 
Do you handle the fuel nozzle, or do you let the line persons do the fueling? Do you have standard caps or aluminumafter-market caps?
 
Bartman said:
you can buy a funnel with a built in filter or maybe drain the fuel through coffee filters? I can't imagine it is being produced by your fuel system though. more likely put in there when fueling.

do you always buy fuel from the same place? maybe they should check their filters.
Click to expand...

The plane is still very new to us, but for the 40hrs we've had it post-delivery we've always filled up at the local FBO. I don't think any of my friends here are seeing metal shavings, but they could have been something we picked up along the way from Kentucky to Massachusetts.

I will drain the entire tank through a filter into some jerry-cans I've got, and give it a good rinse. I've got a funnel with a built-in filter and will use that. I'll also use the funnel for subsequent fill-ups so that I can determine if we're picking up

Bob Turner said:
Do you handle the fuel nozzle, or do you let the line persons do the fueling? Do you have standard caps or aluminumafter-market caps?
Click to expand...

I handle the fuel nozzle. I definitely let the nozzle make firm contact against the filler inlet, which I was advised to do in order to reduce risk of electric sparks.

I don't know if the caps are standard, but I'm pretty sure they're aluminum. What would standard caps look like?
 
Fuel lube on both sides of the gasket helps a lot, fwiw.

Citabria - Interesting Fuel Cap Detail

Was surfing through the mothership's mainframe (aka AmericanChampionAircraft.com) and noticed something in an FAQ response that I've missed up until now. It has to do with the fuel caps, here's the Q & A copied from American Champion's website; Fuel burns unevenly from the...
champcitabriadecathlonforums.com champcitabriadecathlonforums.com
 
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