Three hours chasing a gremlin that was just a loose screw

Was doing a routine inspection on a Cessna 172 last Wednesday. Everything checked out fine until I noticed the oil temp gauge acting weird. Spent 2 hours tracing wires, checking connectors, even pulled the panel. Turns out it was a single loose ground screw behind the gauge. Hand tightened it in 10 seconds. Coworker walked by and said "nice job on the 3 hour oil change." Has anyone else spent way too long on something that dumb?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_evan15d ago

Add a dab of thread locker to that screw, you'll never go there again.

mary61415d ago

Wait you just throw thread locker on the screw without even cleaning the threads first? Ngl that sounds like a recipe for disaster to me. Thread locker needs the surface to be clean and dry otherwise it won't bond right and you're gonna be back there in a month tightening it again. Tbh I learned that the hard way when I did the same thing on my lawn mower handle and the screw literally fell out while I was mowing. Maybe I'm being dramatic but I'd rather use a little bit of blue Loctite on a clean screw than just dabbing it on there dirty.