Dropped $1800 on a Fluke 1587 FC last spring and it paid for itself in one week tracking down a ghost fault in a G1000 harness.

Turns out that intermittent no-start was a fretted pin deep in the wing root connector that no multimeter could catch until I ran the insulation test, has anyone else had a bad pin cause a head-scratcher like that?

2 comments

2 Comments

phoenix_martin401d ago

Man that Fluke paid off fast. Bad pins are the worst. Had a similar issue with a Mooney M20 a few years back where the avionics would just drop offline randomly, drove me nuts for a couple of weeks. Finally found it was a bent pin in the avionics cooling fan connector, not even a critical power pin but a ground return that was barely making contact. Pulled the connector out and saw it right away, one of those tiny pins was pushed back and only touching when the vibration hit just right. A simple pin extraction tool and a new contact fixed it for like two dollars. Those little things can look fine on the outside but you never really know unless you start pushing on every single pin.

david_reed221d ago

Dude tell me about it. That sneaky ground pin stuff is the worst kind of gremlin, drives you up a wall. I had a similar thing on a Cessna 172 where the alternator would just stop charging whenever I hit turbulence. Spent three weekends chasing it, replaced the voltage regulator and everything for nothing. Finally found it was a corrosion spot on the ground pin of the field wire connector, looked totally clean until I actually pulled the pin out and saw the green crust. Its crazy how much time you can waste on something that ends up being a two dollar fix. Honestly makes me want to go pin checking on every connector I see now lol.