Loading…
11
Picked between a torque wrench and a breaker bar on a stuck nose gear bolt, and the choice cost me 3 hours
Last Tuesday I was doing a nose gear inspection on a King Air at our hangar in Boise and one of the torque link bolts would not budge. I had two choices sitting in my box: grab the big 1/2 inch breaker bar and lean on it, or grab the torque wrench and try to break it loose with that. I went with the torque wrench because it was already in my hand, which was a rookie move and I knew it about 2 seconds in. I ended up knocking the calibration out on a $400 tool and still had to go get the breaker bar anyway. The bolt finally let go with a 3 foot cheater pipe and a lot of heat, but now the wrench is off to the cal shop for 2 weeks and my lead was not happy. Lesson learned the hard way, but curious if you all keep a dedicated beater bar for stuck hardware or just risk it with whatever is closest.
1 comments
Log in to join the discussion
Log In1 Comment
the_tessa27d ago
Man, I feel that one. I keep a 24 inch breaker bar that lives in the bottom drawer just for this, and I'll put a pipe on it before I even think about touching a torque wrench. The one time I broke a bolt loose with my good wrench I bent the head and it was never right after that. Now if a bolt fights me at all, the torque wrench goes back in the box and the beater bar comes out. Two weeks in the cal shop is a rough way to learn it.
5