Fram G3802 Fuel Filter cut open

[Diego3336]

This filter was on my 98 Ford Escort since 2009, and the car stayed parked almost abandoned at the garage for all this time as I wasn't living here for the most part of this period, with all fluids, including gas, on it.

I know it's not the way to store a car for a long time and I regret this, but now I am replaced all the filters and fluids and now the car is running and being well cared.

There's no pure gasoline here in Brazil as it is mandatory to have 27% of ethanol blended to it, so it's easy to say this "gasoline" is very hard on engines and filters, so here are some pictures of the Brazilian-made Fram G3802 after being installed on an almost abandoned car with a "gasoline" with at least 1/4 of ethanol

The first two pictures were taken just after I removed the filter:

The filter was quite clogged. The paper media was basically disintegrating and the rubber seal was almost completely dry, but there wasn't any leaking spot. There was some rust and mold inside the filter too, probably caused by the alcohol.

These two pictures were taken a few minutes ago, after I let it dry and got rid of the 'dust' inside:

I can't say anything bad about this filter to be honest, I had problems with clogged Fram fuel filter before on another car, but this time it was really my fault. I replaced this filter with an US-made Motorcraft FG800A and I'm not planning to let this car abandoned ever again.

 

[gregk24]

27% ethanol! what?

 

[Bluestream]

The second picture shows how the ethanol was eating away at the aluminum. At least the Motorcraft filter is stainless steel.

That Ethanol is some serious bad [censored] chit!!

 

[03cvpi]

+1 on using a Motorcraft filter. I had a Fram fuel filter on my 97 Escort for about 3 years and 20k miles, when I went to change it, it was so rusted on the outside, the inlet side broke off in the fuel line fitting. That was a PITA to fix.

 

[Chris142]

Looks better than the orange oil filters

 

[Diego3336]

Originally Posted By: gregk24
27% ethanol! what?


Yeah, it's a crazy thing that happens here because of the sugar cane producers lobbying with the government. The ethanol content on gasoline varies according to the crop and international price of sugar but it's almost always at least 20%, and even this 'norm' doesn't prevent the sugar cane producers to become even more greedier than normal from time to time. 2 or 3 years ago they started to cut alcohol production in favor of sugar as the sugar price was higher, and the government preferred to import corn ethanol from the US instead to cut the ethanol content from gasoline. It's so bizarre that I gave up to try to understand this [censored].

Another crazy thing is the compression ratio of some gasoline engines here. A few years ago, both Ford and GM had Brazilian-gasoline engines with a compression ratio of 13:1 without direct injection or anything. They ran normally here, but you can imagine how bad the thing is if you happen to travel to any neighbour country, as all of them have real gasoline...