My lead mechanic swore by the old torque method, cost us a flap rework

Last month in the hangar, Dave told me to skip the digital torque wrench and just use the beam style with a quick pull, said it was good enough for the flap track bolts on a 737. I followed his advice because he has 20 years on me, and sure enough, two of the bolts came out 15 percent under spec during the next inspection. We had to redo the whole actuator rigging and burn about 6 hours of overtime on a Friday night. Dave admitted he was wrong after we measured the old wrench against a calibrated unit, it was off by almost 10 foot-pounds. I still use his shortcut for non-critical panels, but anything flight control related gets the digital tool every time now. Has anyone else gotten burned by trusting senior shop lore over the manual?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_riley20d ago

Trusting 20 years over the manual is how you end up with Friday night overtime.

norag6619d ago

That's the kind of lesson nobody wants to learn twice.