Old timer told me to trust my gut on pin readings, not the multimeter

I was working on a Cessna 172 at a small airstrip in Texas and this 60 year old mechanic named Pete kept telling me to ignore the multimeter if the pin readings looked borderline. I thought he was being lazy so I replaced a $400 autopilot servo based solely on the meter, and two days later the same fault came back. Turned out there was a corroded ground that the meter couldn't catch because of resistance in the test leads. Has anyone else had a situation where an old school guy was totally right and your fancy tools were wrong?

2 comments

2 Comments

leog6817d ago

Man, that's one of those lessons you only learn after it costs you... I once spent three hours chasing a phantom electrical issue in my truck before realizing I'd been testing against the wrong ground point the whole time. My gut was telling me to double check but I was too stubborn.

rileygonzalez17d ago

Ugh, RIGHT? I used to be the same way honestly. I thought my gut was some old man yelling at clouds. But then I had my old riding mower die on me in the middle of summer and I spent TWO days swapping parts before my neighbor walked over and said the battery terminals were just loose. It was like a slap in the face. Now I ALWAYS check the simple stuff first and listen to that little voice. It's usually just trying to save you from being an idiot for three hours.