RE: PA-28-235 Serial 28-10670
Recently I had to replace an electric fuel pump and discovered both of the Piper supplied fittings were both cracked. Neither of these are currently available from NPA and I have spent countless hours contacting other vendors is search of a replacement. One fitting is a "Tee" with flareless straight male threads at each end and female NPT in the middle. The original Piper P/N was 488-487. The other fitting is a 90 degree "Elbow" with flareless straight male threads on one end and female NPT on the other end. The original Piper P/N 558-905. All Piper support offered was " We can't help because the items are no longer available. Both items were were originally manufactured by Parker Hannifin. I contacted PH and was told they only had one of the part numbers in stock and they wanted $128 each with a minimum order of two. Later this turned out to be bad information and I was told they had not manufactured the fitting since 1998. They offered no help regarding alternate fittings. I suspect these cracked fittings were cracked during installation as a result of overtorqueing the fitting in the 1/4 NPT thread. I believe many others will be found cracked on other aircraft in the future. Replacing these fittings with fittings of a different type would be very costly as the entire fuel line and fittings from the selector valve to the pumps would require replacement. What to do?
Recently I had to replace an electric fuel pump and discovered both of the Piper supplied fittings were both cracked. Neither of these are currently available from NPA and I have spent countless hours contacting other vendors is search of a replacement. One fitting is a "Tee" with flareless straight male threads at each end and female NPT in the middle. The original Piper P/N was 488-487. The other fitting is a 90 degree "Elbow" with flareless straight male threads on one end and female NPT on the other end. The original Piper P/N 558-905. All Piper support offered was " We can't help because the items are no longer available. Both items were were originally manufactured by Parker Hannifin. I contacted PH and was told they only had one of the part numbers in stock and they wanted $128 each with a minimum order of two. Later this turned out to be bad information and I was told they had not manufactured the fitting since 1998. They offered no help regarding alternate fittings. I suspect these cracked fittings were cracked during installation as a result of overtorqueing the fitting in the 1/4 NPT thread. I believe many others will be found cracked on other aircraft in the future. Replacing these fittings with fittings of a different type would be very costly as the entire fuel line and fittings from the selector valve to the pumps would require replacement. What to do?
