Pin pull test on a DMC tool caught two bad pins in 20 minutes at KAFB

I was chasing an intermittent fault on a KC-135 pitot static line last month, the kind that only shows up when the bird shakes on taxi. I had already swapped the transducer and the connector, but the problem kept coming back. A senior guy told me to do a pull test on the pins with a proper DMC tool, not just the manual tug. Turns out two pins in the cannon plug had barely enough retention to pass the initial check, but they would lose contact with any vibration. Replaced those pins and reseated the insert, and the fault disappeared completely. Cost me about 20 minutes versus the 4 hours I was budgeting for a full harness chase. Has anyone else run into pins that pass a visual check but fail a pull test on older connectors?

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lee68925d ago

Pass a visual check but fail a pull test" is basically the story of my life, but with dental tools instead of cannon plugs. I've had forceps that looked fine and then decided to let go of a molar mid-extraction, so yeah, trust the tool, not your eyes. Twenty minutes beats four hours any day, even if it means admitting the gremlin was hiding in the pins all along.