Cutting Corners

One of my key mentors in airplane ownership is a guy named Dave Womeldorff. He was the driving force behind the creation of my Eagle partnership back in the late 1970's and has taught me a lot about maintaining airplanes.

He has a couple mantras that are painfully true. "Anything you do, you'll do three times before it's right." and "There's a right way and a wrong way."

After my initial test flight there was a bit of oil leaking. We identified the culprit, the oil pressure line fitting, but to fix it required removing the engine... again... Something I wasn't too hip on.

The general consensus was that it would be fine for my trek to Texas and I could wait until I got back to fix it proper. One suggestion I got, and followed, was to put some fuel tank sealant around the fitting. That slowed down the leak quite a bit.

"There's a right way and a wrong way."

That phrase kept me up at night. Dammit. So yesterday I pulled the engine to fix the fitting. Removed the sealant gooped on there and put some correct thread sealant on the fitting.

Still leaked. Dammit.

Got a new fitting and again, pulled the engine to replace the fitting entirely. Turns out I did damage it while putting it in and that's where the new leak was from.

9 hours after I got to the airport the engine was started for a second time... NO LEAKS!

"Anything you do, you'll do three times before it's right."

1. Sealant
2. Damaged fitting
3. New fitting

Funny how he's so right on all this...

Tomorrow the adventure begins!