Monkey Lads (TM) work on airplanes, too! (NAC)

[Mike Arman]

This is from the Cessna 150 club list - it seems there are Monkey Lads (TM)
in aviation as well.





> I just didn't realize how much labor was going to add
>up. They billed me 50 hours of labor at $60 an hour. Every part they
>installed was billed at the full retail price. Cowl screws were $1 each.


Well, THAT part sounds familiar, anyway.


>
>Later I discovered they had read the wrong page in the maintenance manual,
>and installed my spinner bulkhead incorrectly. The page they used shows the
>front spinner bulkhead bolted underneath the prop bolts, but that was for an
>earlier model spinner bulkhead made of aluminum. Mine is plastic, and it was
>quite a bit of trouble for them to install it wrong. First they had to drill
>the holes to match the bolt pattern without cracking the bulkhead. (It's
>made of hard, non flexible plastic), They actually fabricated a retaining
>plate out of aluminum, and used it as a pattern, accidentally hitting the
>prop with the pilot drill and almost making it unairworthy.
>
>So get this, the prop bolts were then torqued down onto the plastic
>bulkhead. Because the bulkhead belonged on the other side of the bolts, it
>was now about half an inch too far aft, so it no longer lined up with the
>spinner. Their solution? Carefully wrap layer after layer of duct tape


And this is the unbelievable part . . . .    ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^
^ ^  !!





>around the bulkhead until it was thick enough to fill the gap. When they
>were done, the spinner was so crooked that it looked like I had a bent
>crankshaft when it was rotating. They expressed concern about this, but
>assured me that it was within the "normal" tolerance limits for a spinner.
>It doesn't take a genius to figure out what happened next. The plastic
>bulkhead soon cracked and the out of round spinner transmitted vibration to
>the bulkhead causing it to disintegrate. In short order I had a prop with
>about an eighth of an inch play in it. I first noticed a change in the sound
>of the prop, it got lower in pitch, and made more of a slapping sound. Next
>I began to notice more and more vibration, the panel was noticeably shaking.
>( I later found several of those expensive new screws had vibrated off the
>airplane) I made a landing as soon as possible, and found a fine white
>plastic dust all around the front of my cowl. The mechanic who did the final
>repair was absolutely shocked by what he found.
>
>If there's anything to say in defense of this shop, it's that they rarely
>work on 150's, They are mainly a Cessna shop , but most of their customers
>have twins or 210's so I guess they are used to paying those kinds of bills.
>They seemed real sticklers for the rules, pointing out for example that they
>had refused to return a 210 to service for 6 weeks because it had an
>unapproved instrument dimmer installed. (The dimmer was an aviation part,
>but not STC'd for the 210, and they didn't want to be liable for a field
>approval.)


A Cessna 210 is worth between $75,000 and $200,000, depending on equipment.
Figure the payments on it, and figure the loss of income while the shop
fiddled around and the owner didn't have use of the aircraft . . .


 It's hard to imagine how they let my spinner bulkhead get through
>their shop. To my surprise, they actually accepted the blame (I imagined
>they would deny it, in case I decided to sue) and refunded my money for that
>part of the annual. I ended up with mixed feelings about the whole
>experience. On the one hand they were very nice to me, and seemed genuinely
>meticulous about their work. Most of what they did was done right. On the
>other hand, I believe they gouged me for labor, and inflated the hours
>spent. (no way to prove this.) And finally, the incompetent work they did on
>my spinner bulkhead nearly killed me.   In the end, it was an excellent
>lesson for me, they had the reputation of being the best shop on the west
>coast, but I'll never take reputation for granted again.
>



Sheesh, and we thought WE had problems . . .

Basically, they used duct tape to hold the propeller onto this guy's airplane.



Best Regards,

Mike Arman