Loading…
11
Showerthought: a single stripped screw on a Cessna panel ate 3 hours of my Saturday
Last Saturday I was doing a quick oil check on a 172 in Tucson and one little screw on the cowling was stripped so bad it would not budge, and I figured it would take 10 minutes. Three hours later I had tried a rubber band, a left hand drill bit, and finally a small extractor that snapped off inside the hole, which meant drilling it out anyway while my coffee went cold. Does anyone have a trick for those soft panel screws that does not turn into a whole afternoon?
1 comments
Log in to join the discussion
Log In1 Comment
schmidt.blake1mo ago
Been there buddy, and my record is snapping TWO extractors in the same hole, which I did not even know was possible until I heard that little tink and my soul left my body. The move that finally worked for me on soft panel screws is heat, hit it with a soldering iron for a minute or two, let the metal expand, then give it a shot of freeze spray or even canned air held upside down. The heat/cold cycle breaks the corrosion bond way better than a rubber band ever will. Also soak it in Kroil or PB Blaster the night before if you can plan ahead, but let's be real, we never plan ahead. Grab a JIS screwdriver too, those phillips heads on Japanese hardware love to cam out and make the problem worse.
2