Eric,
I sent you the Link to George's Hangar. This will tell you the complete story of what trouble he had. It's not that big a deal to change the gasket, so for peace of mind, I'm just going to re-do it ASAP!
Dave
35 Amp Generator
Moderators: GAHorn, Karl Towle, Bruce Fenstermacher
Here's the significan portion of the long-winded story I published elsewhere regarding the generator gasket change performed while at the 34th Convention in North Las Vegas. Since the shop hasn't paid me all the money I feel they owe me for all the trouble, I'm no longer timid about letting everyone know their identities. The first shop who continually refused to do the work properly, even after I specifically asked them to quit cutting that gasket was Ron's Aircraft (a genuine Cessna Center) at North Las Vegas. The second shop that failed to replace the garloc seal was Medallion Engines at the same airport (VGT).
The story picks up at the end of my first flight following the generator gasket replacement. (I'd already cautioned them NOT to cut the gasket. They claimed they'd done the work properly and had run and leak-checked their work.)
==========
After only 20 minutes, I landed at Jean, and the entire belly and tail wheel were raining fresh oil. The were only5 qts still in the airplane. It was pouring out of the generator area, despite the mx shop assuring me they'd run it and there were no leaks. I got the airplane back to VGT, and the shop examined it and stated that they had "sliced the old gasket" across, below the tach-drive-housing (TDH) and sliced the new gasket identically so as to match up, and then installed the generator. (This gasket is shaped like a large, four-inch circle with a 2-inch triangle on top. The triangle portion resides between the tach-drive housing and the accessory case, and the round portion resides between the generator and the accessory case, immediately below the tach-drive housing. The shop apparently didn?t want to bother removing the tach-drive housing, so they left it in place, simply cutting the existing gasket across, below that housing, and replacing only the circle-shaped generator portion.)
They said that they'd accidentally gotten the two gaskets created by their process slightly overlapping, and that was the cause of the leak, because there wasn't a close enough match-up of the gaskets. I told them there was an oil-return path at that area and that I considered it a "tactical error" to slice that gasket. I told them I didn't think it possible to cut the gasket and not have a leak. They assured me they'd done it many times before (on other engine models apparently), and since they were a Certified Repair Station, I left them to their methods. One of my concerns, besides the actual repair, was that Wednesday was "airport day" for the convention, and that I wanted my airplane on the flight line to be in the judging events. They assured me that they would be able to make the correction quickly and they'd have my airplane cleaned up and on the flight line by early afternoon.
After lunch I went to check on it, and the mechanic and her boss had left for lunch and my airplane was out on the ramp, still dripping oil from the length of the belly. I located two other mechanics (one of whom didn't even work there) and they got spray bottles and rags and wiped my airplane down. (I taxied it to the flight line just in time to be in the judging.)
The next morning, Thursday, I decided to go test fly the airplane. Three touch and go's later, the firewall and belly was coated with oil. The shop looked at it again, and decided to redo their work, and they also stated that my left mag had oil in it and was a source of leaks. I authorized them to pull that mag, clean it out, reseal it, and re-install it. I cautioned them to time it properly, and they assured me they'd time it to the "other" mag. I instructed them that the "other" mag had it's own timing setting and to follow the Continental manual (which states the left mag should be set at 28 BTC and the right mag at 26 BTC.) They said they would use a protractor, and further assured me that it was the mag, not the generator/TDH that was the source of the oil. (I?m relatively certain they actually DID use a timing-protractor, because I subsequently found black electrical tape dangling through and exiting the No. 1 prop-blade opening of my spinner, due apparently to their dislodging it from it?s normal task as an interface between the spinner and prop hub.)
On Friday, they called me to say they'd completed the mag work, run the engine, and assured me there were "no leaks." I tried three times to get the shop owner's home phone number, just in case I discovered a problem on Saturday. It took several tries, but eventually he gave me his home phone number.
We went to the hotel, and had a great Awards Dinner with one of the better steaks I've ever eaten away from home. (I?ll gratefully mention that due in part to an extreme -effort clean-up job my airplane won the ?Best Original 170B? award!)
On Saturday morning, at 6 AM, I went to the airport and flew the airplane around the pattern twice, and discovered the lower half of the firewall coated with oil. I called the shop owner's home and got an answering machine, and left my cell phone number for him to call. By 10 AM I hadn't heard from him, so I called again and talked to his son who told me that Dad wasn?t home. He didn't know when he would return. I left my number again with instructions for him to call me ASAP. After noon, I still hadn't heard from him, so I called again and got his wife, who was happy to the point of being "giddy" that she didn't know "a thing about the maintenance business...", didn't know how to contact her husband, and didn't know a single mechanic's name or phone number who worked for them. She did tell me her daughter was the company bookkeeper, who might help me.
I called the daughter and got another answering machine. By 2 o'clock I still hadn't heard from anyone, so I drove to the airport to search for another shop. I found another hangar that was open with maintenance and engine overhauls advertised on the header, and with two men working on a Piper inside. They told me they owned the business, was open normally on Saturdays, and would be happy to help me. I looked over their shop, and it had all the signs of a well-developed engine overhaul business, complete with bench testing equipment and machine tools, with several Continental engines in various stages of assembly. They also had a large parts room.
I talked to the owner, who informed me that it was he from whom the first shop had been obtaining gaskets for my airplane. I told him they'd cut every one and asked if he could install my generator and tach-drive housing properly with a complete gasket. He assured me that the first shop had taken his last gen/tach gasket but that he could hand-make a new gasket for me and would "do the job right". He said he'd do it right away and would only need a few hours. He washed the engine down and determined the leak was indeed from below the tach drive housing.
I had promised Jamie and other friends a dinner and entertainment on the Las Vegas Strip, and feeling I had finally found a competent shop, I left it in his hands. Later that night, around 5 PM, I received a phone call from the first shop owner, telling me he was returning my call.
I explained that I'd given up on him getting back to me, and as I had to depart early the next morning (Sunday), that I'd given the job to another shop, and told him the name of the shop. He said he would call them to see what they found. A few minutes later he called me back and confirmed they'd found the leak at the tach-drive housing and said he'd instructed them to go ahead and fix it, and to bill him directly. He said, "I guess you're pretty mad at me." I told him I was disappointed in his shop's work, especially after I'd instructed him to quit cutting that gasket and to remove the tach-drive housing and replace the gasket in it's entirety. I told him I felt that done properly, the job was a two-hour job, that I could have performed myself, and that I thought the 5-hours he'd charged me was excessive. I told him I also thought the 4.5 hours he'd charged to remove, reseal, and reinstall the left mag was also excessive, that I felt that was also about a two-hour job.
He defended his billing saying they'd "done a lot more things while they were in there." I didn't mention that if he'd done "a lot" more that it was unauthorized,?.and undocumented I just remained silent. I told him I DID appreciate his doing the "honorable" thing and telling the other shop to bill him directly. As if an afterthought, he mentioned that when I got home I might want to have my other mag also resealed,...he thought maybe it might be leaking oil also. He didn't think it'd be a problem though.
I didn't respond other than to say "OK". We ended the conversation politely. (I can't imagine a reputable shop, working on one oily mag, noticing the other possibly also leaking, making 4.5 hours labor plus parts each in the deal, not immediately calling the customer to obtain authorization make the other repair also. I'm amazed he'd sign off the airplane as airworthy, knowing I'm about to place myself and my loved ones in this airplane and head out over the Grand Canyon, Lake Mead, and the desert.)
Later, the second shop owner, called me and stated they'd competed the work, run up the engine thoroughly, and found no leaks. "How do you plan to pay us for it?"
I told him that the first shop had informed me they'd talked to his shop and assured me they'd pay his charges. He said, "He must have talked to my son. Ok, then." He then told me he'd found my tach-drive cable knurled-nut (which holds the cable to the drive housing) cracked into "several pieces", but that he'd managed to use a clamp to hold it together. "It will be OK, and will get you home all-right. You won't have any trouble, but you should replace it when you get home." He said they'd placed the airplane out on the ramp and tied it down. I thanked him, and we said "goodbye".
Sunday, 6 AM, I flew the airplane, found only a drop of oil on the firewall, couldn't see anything obviously wrong, and went back to the hotel to gather my wife and friends for the journey back home.
We fueled up at VGT (the last 80 Octane I've seen since 1976! But it cost 30-cents more per gallon than 100LL), and headed out, southeast-bound. Nearing Winslow, Az 2-hours later we could barely see the airport due to the intense smoke from the Show Low, Az fires. The wind was from the south, and fire-bombers were using the airport. Three old Navy P2's, one P3 Orion, and one DC-4 were loading up with red-retardant and journeying down south to unload them on the fires. We landed in the smoke and fueled up. The cafe was closed, so we prepared to depart. As Jamie got into N146YS she asked, "What's this?"
Down in the shady-darkness of the floorboards, on the co-pilot's rudder-pedal scuff-plates, was about 4 or 5 tablespoons of OIL! It was dripping from behind the instrument panel.
I immediately expected to find the 1/8" copper oil-pressure line ruptured that leads oil pressure to the gauge, but when I wiped up the oil (at least it missed the carpet!) and crawled under the panel, I found the oil coming from the upper-end of the tach-drive cable! Oil was coming into the cockpit thru the speedometer-type cable that drives the tach. This could only mean that the tach-drive housing seal had either not been replaced, or was damaged or missing. I called the second shop. I asked him if perhaps he'd forgotten to replace that seal? He stated that he'd not replaced it, that the old one "looked fine" so he'd reused it. (!) I told him that now I was stranded in Winslow, no mechanics, no parts, and an oil leak on Sunday. Thank you. (I'm not sure he caught the sarcasm in my voice.)
............
We spent an unplanned night in a bad cheap motel in Winslow. (Note: If ever in Winslow, avoid the "Days Inn". And unless you like the sensation of having your tongue ripped out with pliers, you do NOT want any of the local red-sauce on your enchiladas. The green sauce however, is good.)
The hotel swimming pool has water warmer than the 104-degree atmosphere, and you may NOT drink anything including water, near the pool, even if it's in a styrofoam cup. (Lots of other hotel rules that make life easier for the hotel. Forget the customer.) The local supermarket (Barfa's?) at least had some cold Beck's. I survived. Barely.
Next morning, we arrived at the Winslow airport with 2 miles in smoke. Our clothes smelled of smoke. It was like everyone within two miles was burning leaves in their yards. The FAA had set up a temporary tower on 122.8 to assist the fire bombers. I had my airplane in the hangar, and we made some temporary repairs. Cleo informed me his generator had quit. (!)
I called Cutter Aviation in ABQ and determined they had the tach-drive seal, and tach/gen gaskets in stock.
............
Note: We got most of the parts and eventually got the airplane home.
...........
By Friday, my tach drive cable had arrived from Aircraft Spruce, so my local mechanic and I pulled my generator and tach housing back off, cleaned up the surfaces, replaced the housing seal, tach/gen gasket, and tach cable, removed the right mag, cleaned and resealed it (not much in the way of oil in there though') and reinstalled it. (Note: The reason the tach/gen gasket shouldn't ever be cut or modified is that the tach drive spindle has an oil-return hole just beneath it which opens into the gasket. Even though that gasket is flat, it covers a small depression below that spindle that provides a return-path, a groove if-you-will, which lets that oil drain back down to the lower accessory case just above the generator contact area. The gasket MUST remain intact, or that drain-groove will send all that oil overboard. Also, anytime you remove a gar-loc type oil seal from its installed position, make certain you REPLACE it with a new seal. They're too inexpensive to take a chance with, and too much potential for trouble exists to skip properly replacing it. I strongly suspect that my tach-drive cable knurled nut was not simply found to be cracked. It was in 4 pieces when I saw it. I suspect that either the first shop tried to stop a leak at the tach housing by tightening this nut with pliers and cracked it, or more likely, the second shop, having re-installed the tach housing with it's old seal, and finding that it leaked, didn't want to go back through the trouble of disassembly again, hand-making a gasket again, etc, etc, and they tightened that nut in a vain attempt to stop oil from coming out the housing at the cable. I suspect they just didn't want to admit their error to me, but also didn't want it on their conscience that they'd broken the cable-nut and clamped it with hose clamps, so they mentioned it to me as if they'd "discovered" it.) (Note: I guess they were thinking I'd never actually see how that nut was broken into 4 pieces, as they probably thought a mechanic would do the work for me.) Everything is just fine, now that my mechanic and myself did the job correctly.
Now I'm in my second day of disassembling my instrument panel, pulling all the Circuit breakers, controls, etc, to clean the oil out from behind the transparent placard overlays, wipe down all the backs of the instruments that got soaked with oil, and trying to bring my airplane back towards the quality-level I started out with. It's already cost me almost 14 hours additional work. The amount of wasted time on my convention vacation out at those "maintenance" shops, the frustration of the incompetence and improper techniques of those shops (WHERE did they ever get the approved data to cut a gasket that was designed and PMA'd to be manufactured just exactly like it was? Which manual instructed them it was OK to do that, or was OK to reassemble accessories, reusing failed parts?) It was all pretty aggravating. I?ve learned a few more things. Watch your maintenance shops, especially when on the road. Make them adhere to mfr?s manuals, techniques and data.
========
PS- And when on the road, tell them UP FRONT you intend to hold them accountable for proper procedures. After all, it's unlikely they'll be seeing you again for repeat business, so now's not the time to be timid while looking for a favor or a discount.
PSS- Ron's sent me half of his invoice as a refund, claiming my tach cable "was probably an auto speedometer cable". (Wrong! It was genuine Cessna.) He gave a lame excuse about auto speedo cables being twisted one direction,...while aero tach cables are twisted the opposite direction to avoid oil in the cockpit. All that is pure B.S., of course. He might think I'm somehow fooled, but I've only quit talking to him out of disgust with him and his sorry shop practices.
Hope this helps explain the opinion I've got about cutting gen/tach drive gaskets.
The story picks up at the end of my first flight following the generator gasket replacement. (I'd already cautioned them NOT to cut the gasket. They claimed they'd done the work properly and had run and leak-checked their work.)
==========
After only 20 minutes, I landed at Jean, and the entire belly and tail wheel were raining fresh oil. The were only5 qts still in the airplane. It was pouring out of the generator area, despite the mx shop assuring me they'd run it and there were no leaks. I got the airplane back to VGT, and the shop examined it and stated that they had "sliced the old gasket" across, below the tach-drive-housing (TDH) and sliced the new gasket identically so as to match up, and then installed the generator. (This gasket is shaped like a large, four-inch circle with a 2-inch triangle on top. The triangle portion resides between the tach-drive housing and the accessory case, and the round portion resides between the generator and the accessory case, immediately below the tach-drive housing. The shop apparently didn?t want to bother removing the tach-drive housing, so they left it in place, simply cutting the existing gasket across, below that housing, and replacing only the circle-shaped generator portion.)
They said that they'd accidentally gotten the two gaskets created by their process slightly overlapping, and that was the cause of the leak, because there wasn't a close enough match-up of the gaskets. I told them there was an oil-return path at that area and that I considered it a "tactical error" to slice that gasket. I told them I didn't think it possible to cut the gasket and not have a leak. They assured me they'd done it many times before (on other engine models apparently), and since they were a Certified Repair Station, I left them to their methods. One of my concerns, besides the actual repair, was that Wednesday was "airport day" for the convention, and that I wanted my airplane on the flight line to be in the judging events. They assured me that they would be able to make the correction quickly and they'd have my airplane cleaned up and on the flight line by early afternoon.
After lunch I went to check on it, and the mechanic and her boss had left for lunch and my airplane was out on the ramp, still dripping oil from the length of the belly. I located two other mechanics (one of whom didn't even work there) and they got spray bottles and rags and wiped my airplane down. (I taxied it to the flight line just in time to be in the judging.)
The next morning, Thursday, I decided to go test fly the airplane. Three touch and go's later, the firewall and belly was coated with oil. The shop looked at it again, and decided to redo their work, and they also stated that my left mag had oil in it and was a source of leaks. I authorized them to pull that mag, clean it out, reseal it, and re-install it. I cautioned them to time it properly, and they assured me they'd time it to the "other" mag. I instructed them that the "other" mag had it's own timing setting and to follow the Continental manual (which states the left mag should be set at 28 BTC and the right mag at 26 BTC.) They said they would use a protractor, and further assured me that it was the mag, not the generator/TDH that was the source of the oil. (I?m relatively certain they actually DID use a timing-protractor, because I subsequently found black electrical tape dangling through and exiting the No. 1 prop-blade opening of my spinner, due apparently to their dislodging it from it?s normal task as an interface between the spinner and prop hub.)
On Friday, they called me to say they'd completed the mag work, run the engine, and assured me there were "no leaks." I tried three times to get the shop owner's home phone number, just in case I discovered a problem on Saturday. It took several tries, but eventually he gave me his home phone number.
We went to the hotel, and had a great Awards Dinner with one of the better steaks I've ever eaten away from home. (I?ll gratefully mention that due in part to an extreme -effort clean-up job my airplane won the ?Best Original 170B? award!)
On Saturday morning, at 6 AM, I went to the airport and flew the airplane around the pattern twice, and discovered the lower half of the firewall coated with oil. I called the shop owner's home and got an answering machine, and left my cell phone number for him to call. By 10 AM I hadn't heard from him, so I called again and talked to his son who told me that Dad wasn?t home. He didn't know when he would return. I left my number again with instructions for him to call me ASAP. After noon, I still hadn't heard from him, so I called again and got his wife, who was happy to the point of being "giddy" that she didn't know "a thing about the maintenance business...", didn't know how to contact her husband, and didn't know a single mechanic's name or phone number who worked for them. She did tell me her daughter was the company bookkeeper, who might help me.
I called the daughter and got another answering machine. By 2 o'clock I still hadn't heard from anyone, so I drove to the airport to search for another shop. I found another hangar that was open with maintenance and engine overhauls advertised on the header, and with two men working on a Piper inside. They told me they owned the business, was open normally on Saturdays, and would be happy to help me. I looked over their shop, and it had all the signs of a well-developed engine overhaul business, complete with bench testing equipment and machine tools, with several Continental engines in various stages of assembly. They also had a large parts room.
I talked to the owner, who informed me that it was he from whom the first shop had been obtaining gaskets for my airplane. I told him they'd cut every one and asked if he could install my generator and tach-drive housing properly with a complete gasket. He assured me that the first shop had taken his last gen/tach gasket but that he could hand-make a new gasket for me and would "do the job right". He said he'd do it right away and would only need a few hours. He washed the engine down and determined the leak was indeed from below the tach drive housing.
I had promised Jamie and other friends a dinner and entertainment on the Las Vegas Strip, and feeling I had finally found a competent shop, I left it in his hands. Later that night, around 5 PM, I received a phone call from the first shop owner, telling me he was returning my call.
I explained that I'd given up on him getting back to me, and as I had to depart early the next morning (Sunday), that I'd given the job to another shop, and told him the name of the shop. He said he would call them to see what they found. A few minutes later he called me back and confirmed they'd found the leak at the tach-drive housing and said he'd instructed them to go ahead and fix it, and to bill him directly. He said, "I guess you're pretty mad at me." I told him I was disappointed in his shop's work, especially after I'd instructed him to quit cutting that gasket and to remove the tach-drive housing and replace the gasket in it's entirety. I told him I felt that done properly, the job was a two-hour job, that I could have performed myself, and that I thought the 5-hours he'd charged me was excessive. I told him I also thought the 4.5 hours he'd charged to remove, reseal, and reinstall the left mag was also excessive, that I felt that was also about a two-hour job.
He defended his billing saying they'd "done a lot more things while they were in there." I didn't mention that if he'd done "a lot" more that it was unauthorized,?.and undocumented I just remained silent. I told him I DID appreciate his doing the "honorable" thing and telling the other shop to bill him directly. As if an afterthought, he mentioned that when I got home I might want to have my other mag also resealed,...he thought maybe it might be leaking oil also. He didn't think it'd be a problem though.
I didn't respond other than to say "OK". We ended the conversation politely. (I can't imagine a reputable shop, working on one oily mag, noticing the other possibly also leaking, making 4.5 hours labor plus parts each in the deal, not immediately calling the customer to obtain authorization make the other repair also. I'm amazed he'd sign off the airplane as airworthy, knowing I'm about to place myself and my loved ones in this airplane and head out over the Grand Canyon, Lake Mead, and the desert.)
Later, the second shop owner, called me and stated they'd competed the work, run up the engine thoroughly, and found no leaks. "How do you plan to pay us for it?"
I told him that the first shop had informed me they'd talked to his shop and assured me they'd pay his charges. He said, "He must have talked to my son. Ok, then." He then told me he'd found my tach-drive cable knurled-nut (which holds the cable to the drive housing) cracked into "several pieces", but that he'd managed to use a clamp to hold it together. "It will be OK, and will get you home all-right. You won't have any trouble, but you should replace it when you get home." He said they'd placed the airplane out on the ramp and tied it down. I thanked him, and we said "goodbye".
Sunday, 6 AM, I flew the airplane, found only a drop of oil on the firewall, couldn't see anything obviously wrong, and went back to the hotel to gather my wife and friends for the journey back home.
We fueled up at VGT (the last 80 Octane I've seen since 1976! But it cost 30-cents more per gallon than 100LL), and headed out, southeast-bound. Nearing Winslow, Az 2-hours later we could barely see the airport due to the intense smoke from the Show Low, Az fires. The wind was from the south, and fire-bombers were using the airport. Three old Navy P2's, one P3 Orion, and one DC-4 were loading up with red-retardant and journeying down south to unload them on the fires. We landed in the smoke and fueled up. The cafe was closed, so we prepared to depart. As Jamie got into N146YS she asked, "What's this?"
Down in the shady-darkness of the floorboards, on the co-pilot's rudder-pedal scuff-plates, was about 4 or 5 tablespoons of OIL! It was dripping from behind the instrument panel.
I immediately expected to find the 1/8" copper oil-pressure line ruptured that leads oil pressure to the gauge, but when I wiped up the oil (at least it missed the carpet!) and crawled under the panel, I found the oil coming from the upper-end of the tach-drive cable! Oil was coming into the cockpit thru the speedometer-type cable that drives the tach. This could only mean that the tach-drive housing seal had either not been replaced, or was damaged or missing. I called the second shop. I asked him if perhaps he'd forgotten to replace that seal? He stated that he'd not replaced it, that the old one "looked fine" so he'd reused it. (!) I told him that now I was stranded in Winslow, no mechanics, no parts, and an oil leak on Sunday. Thank you. (I'm not sure he caught the sarcasm in my voice.)
............
We spent an unplanned night in a bad cheap motel in Winslow. (Note: If ever in Winslow, avoid the "Days Inn". And unless you like the sensation of having your tongue ripped out with pliers, you do NOT want any of the local red-sauce on your enchiladas. The green sauce however, is good.)
The hotel swimming pool has water warmer than the 104-degree atmosphere, and you may NOT drink anything including water, near the pool, even if it's in a styrofoam cup. (Lots of other hotel rules that make life easier for the hotel. Forget the customer.) The local supermarket (Barfa's?) at least had some cold Beck's. I survived. Barely.
Next morning, we arrived at the Winslow airport with 2 miles in smoke. Our clothes smelled of smoke. It was like everyone within two miles was burning leaves in their yards. The FAA had set up a temporary tower on 122.8 to assist the fire bombers. I had my airplane in the hangar, and we made some temporary repairs. Cleo informed me his generator had quit. (!)
I called Cutter Aviation in ABQ and determined they had the tach-drive seal, and tach/gen gaskets in stock.
............
Note: We got most of the parts and eventually got the airplane home.
...........
By Friday, my tach drive cable had arrived from Aircraft Spruce, so my local mechanic and I pulled my generator and tach housing back off, cleaned up the surfaces, replaced the housing seal, tach/gen gasket, and tach cable, removed the right mag, cleaned and resealed it (not much in the way of oil in there though') and reinstalled it. (Note: The reason the tach/gen gasket shouldn't ever be cut or modified is that the tach drive spindle has an oil-return hole just beneath it which opens into the gasket. Even though that gasket is flat, it covers a small depression below that spindle that provides a return-path, a groove if-you-will, which lets that oil drain back down to the lower accessory case just above the generator contact area. The gasket MUST remain intact, or that drain-groove will send all that oil overboard. Also, anytime you remove a gar-loc type oil seal from its installed position, make certain you REPLACE it with a new seal. They're too inexpensive to take a chance with, and too much potential for trouble exists to skip properly replacing it. I strongly suspect that my tach-drive cable knurled nut was not simply found to be cracked. It was in 4 pieces when I saw it. I suspect that either the first shop tried to stop a leak at the tach housing by tightening this nut with pliers and cracked it, or more likely, the second shop, having re-installed the tach housing with it's old seal, and finding that it leaked, didn't want to go back through the trouble of disassembly again, hand-making a gasket again, etc, etc, and they tightened that nut in a vain attempt to stop oil from coming out the housing at the cable. I suspect they just didn't want to admit their error to me, but also didn't want it on their conscience that they'd broken the cable-nut and clamped it with hose clamps, so they mentioned it to me as if they'd "discovered" it.) (Note: I guess they were thinking I'd never actually see how that nut was broken into 4 pieces, as they probably thought a mechanic would do the work for me.) Everything is just fine, now that my mechanic and myself did the job correctly.
Now I'm in my second day of disassembling my instrument panel, pulling all the Circuit breakers, controls, etc, to clean the oil out from behind the transparent placard overlays, wipe down all the backs of the instruments that got soaked with oil, and trying to bring my airplane back towards the quality-level I started out with. It's already cost me almost 14 hours additional work. The amount of wasted time on my convention vacation out at those "maintenance" shops, the frustration of the incompetence and improper techniques of those shops (WHERE did they ever get the approved data to cut a gasket that was designed and PMA'd to be manufactured just exactly like it was? Which manual instructed them it was OK to do that, or was OK to reassemble accessories, reusing failed parts?) It was all pretty aggravating. I?ve learned a few more things. Watch your maintenance shops, especially when on the road. Make them adhere to mfr?s manuals, techniques and data.
========
PS- And when on the road, tell them UP FRONT you intend to hold them accountable for proper procedures. After all, it's unlikely they'll be seeing you again for repeat business, so now's not the time to be timid while looking for a favor or a discount.
PSS- Ron's sent me half of his invoice as a refund, claiming my tach cable "was probably an auto speedometer cable". (Wrong! It was genuine Cessna.) He gave a lame excuse about auto speedo cables being twisted one direction,...while aero tach cables are twisted the opposite direction to avoid oil in the cockpit. All that is pure B.S., of course. He might think I'm somehow fooled, but I've only quit talking to him out of disgust with him and his sorry shop practices.
Hope this helps explain the opinion I've got about cutting gen/tach drive gaskets.