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Had a junior tech yesterday question why we still use pin pullers on old harnesses
He's fresh out of school, probably 22 years old. He watched me spend 15 minutes chasing down a bad pin on a 727 connector and asked why we don't just cut and splice like they taught him. I had to stop and think about it for a second. I told him about how one bad crimp on a fire alarm loop grounded out an entire panel on a King Air I worked on back in 2017. He seemed surprised. It made me realize how much institutional knowledge leaves the floor when guys retire and nobody passes it down. Anyone else dealing with younger techs who want to skip the old school methods?
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leo_fisher7d ago
Bring up something they don't teach in school at all. That 727 pin puller saved my back on a twin otter last winter. Had a pin that was corroded so bad in a wing root connector I couldn't get any grip with pliers. The pin puller grabbed it in one try and I was back inside the fuselage in five minutes. Young guys see the tool as old and slow, but they don't realize it's safer and cleaner than trying to brute force a pin out with random tools. My boss always said the right tool for the job is the one that doesn't make you curse.
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hannah_perry7d ago
That "right tool doesn't make you curse" line really got me, I used to grab whatever was closest and just muscle through. But a couple years back I spent an afternoon trying to pry a stubborn pin out with a screwdriver and ended up bending the bracket. After that I borrowed a proper pin puller and it was over in seconds, I felt foolish for not trying it sooner.
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bettyroberts6d ago
That pin puller story about the Twin Otter really hit home. I had a similar situation with a corroded pin on a Cessna 172 nav light connector last year and my old pin puller saved me an entire afternoon of cussing. It breaks my heart seeing these kids treat decades of hard learned lessons like they're ancient history. They'll learn the hard way when a splice job grounds out something expensive and they have to explain it to the boss.
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