The Pre-Flight Check

[pdub]

I'm not an airplane pilot, as close as I've come to it is RC model airplanes, years ago. But it's my understanding that if you're piloting a real airplane, you'd better at least walk around it and look at it before you go. There's all kinds of stuff on a real airplane that can kill you if it doesn't even look right if you look at it. The pilots say that takeoff is optional but landing is mandatory.

There was a really rich legendary guy in SC, folks talked about he had a small plane, and he just walked out an got into it before he flew. Never inspected it, just drove it like a car. Lots of us just drive a car like it's just a car, I'm more guilty than most until the last few years when I started modifying the car (messing with its factory reliability). By now I know a few things to look at.

We went for a great 6-hour outing in the north Georgia mountains yesterday, in Red, following the Supermans in their family car. I was so beat up from crawling on the concrete in the garage putting the rear brakes back on, and new brake pads on the front...well, yesterday I could barely move. I was hobbling and grimacing at the restaurant in Helen, GA, people were giving me sympathetic looks and getting out of the way, me trying to walk. I'm sure I looked bad trying to even move.

And the night before, so close to finished....all I need to do is to put those wheels back on. I couldn't even bend over, the wheels in the floor. But I did it anyway, the wheels had been laying there for two weeks or more. Check the tire pressures. 3 of them, all just fine.....that hurt. I was staring at the 4th one...why am I even doing this?!?!. The 4th one hurt the worst, bending over again. It was at 20 pounds. Slow leak. THAT could have had an effect doing curves in the mountains. Pumped it back up for the trip.

I struggled to get all the wheels back on the car, that hurt even worse, was done with that when Superman and his kid showed up. Car on the ground, wheels not torqued. SM Jr. said "I'LL do it." Oh hell yeah. I handed him the torque wrench, oh PLEASE do. He said it was real heavy. Interesting, a 60-pound kid, if he jumps up and down and strains hard enough, he can get 90 pounds of force on a torque wrench. He made it click on all 20 lug nuts. Better him than me at that point in the game.

If you just get in and drive it, good luck with it. And it won't just be bad luck when something goes wrong.

[DanStokes]

Of course, you're right. Sadly, cars have gotten so good that people think of them as an appliance, like a range or a fridge and if they crap out they get annoyed but pretty much just get a new one. With SM Jr. getting this kind of exposure he'll know that cars need a little love from time to time and if you make them special they may need a little more love but will pay it back 10X or more. Good for you and SM helping the lad learn a valuable lesson.

Back in the Olden Days of my youth (or were they Golden Days?) cars needed work or you weren't going anywhere. Points every 10 or 12K miles, and not optional. Tires were pretty much dead at 25 K at the most. We did a LOT of drum brakes - probably about as often as tires. My point is that people COULDN'T think of cars as appliances, assuming you wanted them to take you somewhere. And yet, to some extent they were more fun and the average person certainly had a more intimate relationship with their car. On the other hand I sure appreciate that I can hit the key and go anywhere, anytime, with nothing more than filling the tank. Like everything, it's a trade-off........

Dan

[malc]

I notice the lack of diligence when I see cars with taillights and headlights out.

[pdub]

I notice the lack of diligence when I see cars with taillights and headlights out.

There's that, but here in this county in Tennessee, there is no car inspection. Next county over (Chattanooga), they have smog laws. 20 miles apart, totally different rules. I'm not in favor of car inspection laws, it's a cash cow for the folks running the inspection shops. I'm in favor of folks taking care of their cars. If for no other reason, to protect their own lives. And so many people don't.

I guess if you don't go much over 130 mph, the vehicle's integrity doesn't seem all that important. I don't know, I have no idea what folks are thinking.

[Barry Donovan]

preflight is serious military stuff mostly.
civilian stays very busy...the landing version is important to get a look over..
pre flight had intervals of time after post flight.
2a and 2b?

if it sat long enough, preflight mandatory.

the landing version is always most dramatic.
if there was threats outside the fence.. pre flight had to be done at all times, especially places some nut could cram something.

I have a very scary story about that.. and I am the only crew chief left to tell the tale.
Still a big blank spot of facts.. but only intuition and darkness.


pre flight is good. I still treat my cars like planes.

builder of my own stuff, it is like boasting to just get in after a month of gathering chipmunk poop and go with it, not popping the hood., ina subaru anyway.

the truck could sit a year and start up out of the sink hole it made for itself.

[malc]

I'm not in favor of car inspection laws, it's a cash cow for the folks running the inspection shops. I'm in favor of folks taking care of their cars.

The problem is folks do not maintain their vehicles....
I´m not against inspection laws BUT it´s taken to the nth degree.
Basically the car has to be safe, steer and stop and have the required lighting working.
The thing that gets me is I cannot legally have the 12" steering wheel, so for inspection I swap it out for a 14" which is
the legal percentage under size from stock.
My rear tires are now the legal percentage oversize from the tires I have written into the documentation.
The engine is a swapped 350, the documents say 305 but the difference is hidden inside the motor...
The shaved door handles, "there must be a mechanical way to open the car doors".... now I have door handles but if
I´m in the car and lock the doors no one can open them so back to square one and I´m not about to point that out to them.
In Germany I could only install approved parts, those that came with a certificate, any other part exhaust, wheels, springs,
shocks etc., without a certificate had to be installed inspected and written up in the car´s documents.

When a car here reaches four years old it´s going to need inspection, I think the first is good for two years then it goes to yearly.
A passed car gets a windscreen sticker, every year the color changes, so expired inspections can be quickly spotted.

They used to inspect shocks by placing the front or rear wheels on plates that vibrated the car pretty severely and a display showed the state they are in.
A friend of mine took a 2nd gen Camaro with new shocks and it failed.
Took it again with another new set of shocks and it failed yet again....re installed the old originals and it passed.....

So that part of the inspection circus has now been omitted as unreliable.

[67 Malibu]

As a lead crew chief on KC135R tankers & before that RF-4C's for over 25 years I did lots & lots of preflight, thru flight & post flight inspections. It wasn't until I retired that I realized that I had been treating my vehicles the same way for years. Not a hand-held checklist but a mental list of what needs to be looked over or even replaced on a regular basis. I used that concept when I put my first HRPT car together for the 2011 tour. I cut it so tight that I had not yet had the Tremec in 5th when we left Lincoln. So things were clenched pretty tight for the first couple hundred miles that first day. Somewhere between Lincoln & Cookeville, Tennessee the voltage regulator went south. Later in the next week on the tour we had the Edelbrock carb cause problems up around Indy & the next day the 327 became a seven cylinder outside of Muskegon, Michigan. Turned out the #2 plug wire boot developed a crack & was arcing to the exhaust.

I replaced the regulator in Cookeville. The carb was a used one that had been running fine when we left but I chose to replace it in Indy. And the plug wire boot got a quick wrap of electrical tape ala my Harley days. Point being, I didn't feel any of those were really predictable under the circumstances. But the things from my mental check list that I did replace, belts, hoses, brakes, etc., never caused any problems. We also did the next four years of HRPT Long Hauls in the car with a good inspection before each trip & never had any problem of any kind after that. Well, other than that speeding ticket in Ohio a couple of years later. Different kind of problem though.

[oletrux4evr]

Obviously you needed to calibrate the speedometer....................................... ...

[Deaf Bob]

Obviously you needed to calibrate the speedometer....................................... ...

Needed better bifocals.

[67 Malibu]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I thought the guy must have come out of my trunk. But the guys behind me said that he flipped around on me. That was 2014 on the stretch between Charleston, WV & Norwalk, Ohio. We had just come out of a two-lane into a four-lane stretch. Same road. We found out later that they had a speed trap there just especially for the Power Tour cars. And I was far from the only one to get hit.

[67 Malibu]

Obviously you needed to calibrate the speedometer....................................... ...

As usual, there wasn't an instrument shop guy available, Ed. Something to think about the next time that you are IFR.

[silver_bullet]

so what do you do when the HUD (heads up display), the mechanical speedo, the GPS, and your phone's GPS all read different speeds? Check with Doc Brown about the Space/Time continuum?