Turns out my old Cessna had a faulty voltage regulator from the factory

I was digging through the maintenance logs on my 1978 Cessna 172 last night and found a note that said the original voltage regulator was out of spec by nearly 2 volts from day one. The plane flew fine for years but the avionics were always acting flaky. Has anyone else found weird factory defects hiding in their logs?

2 comments

2 Comments

lunaw728d ago

Call me a doubter but I'm not sure a 2 volt difference from the factory is really that big of a deal. @dakota160 you're probably right that some slipped through, but those old Cessnas were built simple enough that a slight regulator variance wouldn't cause major problems unless you were running a ton of avionics. Most of the flaky behavior back then was probably just dirty contacts or bad grounds anyway. I've seen guys chase phantom electrical issues for years only to find a corroded terminal block hiding under the panel.

dakota1608d ago

Honestly I wonder how many other planes from that year have the same problem hiding in plain sight. Some factory QC slip throughs just never get flagged unless someone really digs.