10,000 Hail Mary's and a pox on mechanics

I recently wrote about my adventures with Fat Albert the Apache and the
session on the torture rack known as "the annual"... For a quick
review: I replaced the Southwind with a new gas heater, and a new
torque tube and actuator arm for the flaps, repaired a stuck valve on
the port engine (my first valve in over 40 years of ownership), and
installed a new carburetor (3 times, if you recall)on the starboard
engine... So, since then I have had nearly 40 hours of trouble free
flying - and toasty warm flying at that, with the new heater I might
add...

Alas, all good things come to an end... ATC has been grumbling about my
transponder cutting in and out the past two flights... Now, that one I
know the answer to; the inline plug on the power leads (WWII vintage
from the looks of it) gets an oxide layer on the pins every few
years... So, reluctantly, I bent myself backwards over the seat and
wriggled on my back until my head is on top of the rudder pedals -
anyone who understands Apaches and anatomy knows this cannot be done by
a man who has his seventh decade of life staring him in the face, but I
digress - As I am gently polishing the pins on the male plug I happen
to survey the jungle of wiring, tubing, chains, gyros, etc., that is
behind the panel, and what to my wondering eyes should appear, but the
dangling end of the blast tube for the radio box (which box, includes
the erratic transponder).... Reason gently dawns in my decrepit brain
that it ain't the power plug this time, it's overheating in the
transponder with no airflow and with the warming temperatures of
spring... It also dawns that the mechanics had to have yanked the tube
loose during the installation of the control switch and wiring for the
new heater - and decided that they were not going through the flames of
hell to replace it...

Reaching up I can just wriggle my hand into position over top of the
control column, but I can't do anything useful once there... With a
sinking feeling in my stomach I already know what I have to do... So, I
take out the seats... Kneel down on the main spar box (which comes to a
peak at the top, not a flat)... Remove the instrument panel bezel...
Remove the glare shield... Remove the top row of gyros... Remove the
EGT gauge and wiring... And then I can just barely see the side of the
radio box where the nipple for the blast tube has to protrude...
Pushing bundles of wiring aside I feel around and find the nipple, and
it has a gummy wad of black tape wound on it... ( jeez, some mechanics
should be buried, then shot) So, I start scratching with finger nails
to find the end of each layer, and pulling to unwind the tape... Then I
clean the sticky residue off the nipple with MEK ( damn, I hate that
stuff, I'm woozy in 5 seconds, my heart pounds, and it feels like an
elephant is on my chest )...

Threading the blast tube into position I can feel that the tube is
considerably undersize for the nipple and thus can't be clamped, which
is why some distant past mechanic arrived at the brilliant decision to
gob it on with tape... Up to this point I have spent some 3 hours
kneeling on the sharp edge of the spar box... I limp home to think
about it... Next day, bright and early, I go at it again... I get a
chunk of auto heater hose, slit it lengthways, taking a wedge out in
the process so it forms a tapered tube when squeezed shut... Then
wiggling it over the nipple and the blast tube simultaneously
(remember, I'm working blind and can get only one hand in there)I
painstakingly thread 4 tie wraps onto the hose and carefully cinch them
up a little at a time so that the hose clamps down evenly... (I won't
tell on myself how many I dropped and how many I had to cut off because
they slipped) After more than an hour bent forward in an awkward
position, holding my weight up with one hand, while working with the
other, I finally get the hose cinched tight... I fall backwards onto
the rear sets with a sigh... After letting my throbbing knees take a
break I begin reassembling the instrument panel... In the end I spent
6 hours in the position of penitence fixing a problem that should not
have happened, and would not have happened if the certified mechanics
who worked on this airplane for the past 47 years had a brain between
them...

denny - irish but not catholic