A Life Lesson From Deadly Auto Maintenance Failure-- The Heart of an Engine

No copyright claimed-- free to copy and share
written by Herald

FAILING BASIC AUTO MAINTENANCE CAN END AN AUTO'S LIFE--SAME WITH US PEOPLE

The other day, I was driving down a highway in Alaska late for a doctor's appointment, when my car lost power at 70 MPH. For us Americans, and any developed country, state, province, or area, that relies on cars heavily for transportation, our cars can represent a feeling of personal power, or freedom, especially for us guys. But, it's a false sense of security. as Psalm 34 says: "The horse [war horse] is a vain means of safety, and it's great strength [power] affords no escape." (Psalm 33:17--KJV, 1958--unknown translation version; brackets added). And when this source of security and freedom falters, it is an unnerving experience, even traumatic for most people, especially those who have limited financial means and can end up truly stranded.
So, when I put the "pedal to the metal," or "take-off thrust" for a select few, or even, "go for throttle-up" for even a fewer select few, expecting the usual response from my trusty "war horse," and nothing happened, I was immediately distressed, especially when I looked at the temperature gauge, and it was spiked--red-lined, indicating an "engine meltdown." This happened once in the air, when flying an old ultralight aircraft when the propeller shaft sheared and the wooden prop hit the frame, broke in half, and tore up the trailing edge of the nylon wing, a potentially deadly and life-threatening situation requiring the use of the back-up $1500 back-up rocket-deployed ballistic parachute that is designed to save the plane and pilot in the event of a catastrophic failure of the aircraft. This tended to happen to ultralights back in the day, unfortunately, since many of them were not designed and tested to the same standards as aircraft, and on this day, my plane was only 1/4 inch away from a ballistic recovery, last-ditch situation. But the nylon safety strap held, although damaged by the propeller, by 1/4 inch.
On another occasion, we were flying with my dad in his real airplane near Whitehorse, Canada back in the 70's, when his plane red-lined in a diving stall while he was descending through a hole in the clouds, and he elected to dump the flaps and ride the dive out, with is wife and kids yelling loudly at him to do something about it. My father, a surgeon and medical director, never panicked in an emergency--he was steady as a rock, which can be a good thing in most emergencies. He calmly pulled his plane gradually out of the dive at a high rate of speed, and recovered with plenty of altitude after sounding like a WWII plane on a diving run on the enemy. But, Canada is not our enemy, and the Canadian customs officer just said, "welcome to Canada-- we heard you coming, Eh!?"
This is nothing compared to the famous harrowing dive of an Air Canada Boeing 707 airliner by a test-pilot eamset out to test the new plane in a high-speed dive, but some say, they really wanted to be the first to break the sound barrier in a commercial airliner.
But, back down to earth in an auto on the highway, something much less of an emergency. Why did my car overheat and almost end it's usefulness? The heart of an automobile is the cooling system, at least the engine, if you want to get where you're going. I had neglected to top off the coolant system because, being from the 70's before coolant reservoirs, to top off the radiator, you had to just take off the cap and fill it up. I knew this, but, several times, I just topped off the reservoir thinking, "if the reservoir is full, the radiator must be full." I was mistaken. And it almost ruined my car for good. Why did this happen? I am fully responsible for maintaining my vehicle, especially since I am a fairly experienced mechanic. But, what was blinding me to "seeing" that the coolant was low? Repeatedly? In a company, they call this "complacency," and it is a sign that the company is dying. It's the same with a church, or a family marriage relationship, or individual. And often, it is a spiritual attack of malicious spirits on our ministry as Christians. The enemies of God know our weak points and will exploit them.

But, out of time--

I've had my share of auto disasters too and learned that it is not wise to neglect preventative maintenance. It's like the old Fram oil commercial says, "Pay it now or pay it later". Later is always bad and the cost increases exponentially.

interesting Post, H...well written...

oh my yes, we must daily 'check our gauges and keep them at the level that our Father demands -
in order to pass the test of His High/Standards...

We've all had lot's of mechanics stories-- I asked one mechanic how much it would cost to fix a car years ago. He said, "sky's the limit!"
Another time, I took my car in to have an idling problem fixed. The mechanic said, "YEAH..., SUMTHIN'S NOT RIGHT WITH IT!" $300 dollars later, I picked it up and the car was still stalling, so I called him from work and said, "hey, I thought you fixed my car!? It's still stalling out!" He just said, "YEAH..., SUMTHIN'S NOT RIGHT WITH IT!"

Well, the ultralight propeller failing was about the same thing. My wooden prop picked up some ice in a field in the spring, and so I tried to fill it with some resin, not realizing that the a propeller must be perfectly balanced. My instructor heard it right away and motioned for me to shut it off. He's the same one who taught me to fly using a radio headphone in the helmet, in my ultralight "Eagle," an 80's ultralight with a canard out front like the Wright Brothers plane (an ultralight is like a nylon hang-glider with a motor and wheels). I think that's what cracked the propeller-shaft-- the vibration from the damaged propeller, that and hard landings because I barely knew how to fly the dang thing. I've always had a bit of a "Maverick" style, and when he was trying to teach me how to fly in low-hops over the taxiway, it wasn't gong well. I started to drift over into some willows and thought it would damage the fabric, so, in a crazy split-second decision, without even knowing how to fly, I gave it full throttle and headed for the sky. It wasn't totally reckless. I had taken a few lessons in a Cessna 150, even though I never really landed one on my own. And I had flown many hours with my father growing up and had passed the FAA written test and, at least in theory, I felt confident enough to blast off into the wild-blue, on a wing-and-a-prayer. My instructor was pretty frantic yelling orders in the headphones. "Cut back on your power!" Which I managed to do, even though I was a little stunned, and managed to level out a bit at a thousand feet or so. Then he said, "Turn back towards the runway!" He repeated it again, "Harold, turn back towards the runway!" "Look where you are!" "You're headed out to sea!" I was still trying to recover my senses a bit and regain composure, but, I finally looked down and saw the mud-flats of the inlet and the ocean, and decided he was right. So, I turned it back towards shore and Mike talked me through a turn at a couple thousand feet.
An ultralight "Eagle" is a very forgiving aircraft. With the "Canard" out front, it is almost impossible to stall, since the front little wing, will stall before the main wing and recover. And you can pretty much fly it without using the pedals.
So Mike gave me a few quick lessons and said it was time to try and set up a landing, which I was pretty reluctant to do at that point. From a couple thousand feet up, the taxiway looked pretty small, and I didn't see how I could land on it.
So, it was my life at stake, and I was in command of my new plane, and so I broke the operational rule of Ultralights not using the main runway and made a command decision to land on it.
When I got down, somehow, Mike said, "That didn't do anything for me, did it for you?"

Thank you for sharing, love hearing experience

I'm glad to be alive to share it!

My instructor Mike finally flew his last flight over 10 years ago doing what he loved the most--teaching people how to fly. I told him once I was too broke and depressed to fly. He said, "you're too broke and depressed to live life!" He said, "if you really wanted to fly, you would make it happen."

Hundreds of people came to his memorial since he had touched the lives of countless people. One flyer went on to become a 747 pilot, and when he flew overhead, (over the North Pole route to Europe) he would take his binoculars and look down at the tiny airport where he had learned to fly.

If it were not for God, many times myself faced death, would have been dead!

same here SF, that's why we now know Jesus is our Christ and Saviour,
The One Who truly Loves us through thick and thin!...