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Pro tip: the old A&P at my shop told me to wiggle every connector before chasing a short, and he was right
Last week I had a nav light blinking on a King Air and I was about to pull the whole wing panel to trace the wire. This guy Ray, who has been doing avionics since the 80s, told me to just wiggle every cannon plug on that circuit first, takes two minutes. Found a loose pin in a connector behind the baggage bulkhead, reseated it, and the light was solid. I had already written up a 4 hour troubleshooting plan in my head. Has anyone else had an old timer call the fix before you even crack the manual?
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daniel_carter9d ago
Man, I gotta say I see it the other way on this one. Wiggling connectors is fine when it works, and yeah, old Ray nailed it that time, but that trick bites you eventually. You reseat a pin that was barely hanging on and it feels solid, then the plane flies and it works loose again because the real problem was the pin tension or corrosion, and now you never actually fixed it, you just reset the clock. I would rather spend the two minutes wiggling AND then look at what I wiggled, you know? Pull the connector apart, check the pin drag, look for green or black junk on the contacts. Because the worst call in this business is the one that comes back as a repeat squawk, and the customer does not care that Ray was right the first time.
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