Vent: Chased a ground fault for 6 hours on a King Air 200

Worked a King Air 200 last Tuesday. Pilot said the nav lights were flickering. Thought it would be a quick fix. Checked every bulb, every connector, every breaker. Nothing. Spent the whole afternoon tracing wires in the tail cone. Finally found it at 5 PM. A single chafed wire behind a panel near the aft equipment bay. Barely visible. Took me 6 hours total. All for a 10 minute fix once I saw it. Anyone else spend way too long on something that should have been obvious?

4 comments

4 Comments

skyler_mitchell2mo ago

Man that is the worst kind of find. I read somewhere that chafed wires in the tail are super common on King Airs because of all the vibration back there. Six hours is brutal but at least you saved the next guy some trouble.

hannah_williams2mo ago

Vibration might not be the real culprit though, more likely just poor routing from the factory.

iris_rivera4414d ago

Just glad my shaky hands didn't make it worse, @hannah_williams.

phoenix_campbell8814d ago

Hannah might be onto something there. I've seen a few King Airs where the wiring bundles looked like they were just thrown in during final assembly, no respect for path or clearance. Vibration can definitely make a bad routing worse over time, like a small rub turning into a full chafe after a few hundred hours. Six hours is a long day, but man, knowing you caught something that could have gone silent on someone later makes it worth the headache. Did you guys find any other surprises while you were in there?