I wasn't sure how I was gonna repair the broken stainless steel tube. At first I figured I might just replace it. It's not the best design, but it lasted over 120 hours...it could easily survive another 15 to 20 hours on the trip home if I replaced it with a new one. Just enough to get me home where I could completely revamp the whole thing. The problem was that I would need to (a) buy some tubing, (b) find a way to cut it, and (c) find a way to drill it. I called the FBO at Charlottetown and asked if there was a maintenance shop on the field. Nope. Nothing. Maybe try Summerside? That was over an hour away, but I guess I'd go if I had to. Nope, there's no aircraft shop on PEI. Any homebuilders around? I looked on the web but couldn't find anybody. I figured I'd just have to hit a hardware store and buy a drill and a hack saw. And where to buy the tubing?
I drove to the airport to get the old broken brace and get measurements for a new one. I didn't really have a solid plan at that point. All I knew was that I wanted to repair or replace that sucker before heading out if I could. I took the cowl off and thought about other ways I might be able to brace the oil cooler and baffles without the same sort of tube setup, but without having access to real tools and a shop. I thought about using stainless steel wire to create a mesh brace of sorts, but then I thought better of it. It would be a last resort. I took the broken brace and went into the FBO. "Do you have any idea where I could either have something like this welded, or where I can buy new tubing to make another one?" The guy recommended a welding shop in Charlottetown. I called and asked if they could weld stainless steel...yep.
I drove over to the welding shop and brought the broken brace into the office. The woman working the office said to bring it out to John, who would do the repair. The facility was basically a big barn-like building with about 6 or 7 dudes welding various stuff. Trying to "find John" in a welding shop isn't the easiest thing in the world...first of all, you've got welding going on in about 4 spots at once, so you can't really walk around with your friggin' eyes open if you want to see for the rest of the day. And I don't remember why, but it was loud as hell in there. So I'm kind of stumbling around with my hand over my eyes, yelling, "John? Are you John?"
Finally one guy took a look at what I had and pointed me toward another guy. I managed to interrupt him without going blind and asked if he could repair the brace. He said sure, but he'd have to finish what he's doing first, since he'd have to switch the aluminum rig out for stainless. "I'll have it ready for you around dinnertime." "Dinnertime?" I asked. "Yep." He flipped his helmet down and went right back to trying to blind me. I walked out of the shop, hand held mostly up to my eyes.
What the frick time is dinnertime? It was 10:30am at the time. I figured they probably closed around 5pm or so. I guess I'll come back at 4:45 and see what's what. Huh? No. Go get a real answer. I stopped in the office and said to the woman, "The guy out there said he could do the repair for me, but he said he'd have it ready around dinnertime. Do you know what he may have meant by that?"
"Well, we're closed between 12 and 1," was all she said.
That didn't quite register with me. "He said dinnertime...should I come back some time before 5?"
"Let me get the foreman." Are you serious?! She disappeared into the back office and out came an older guy. I asked him the same thing I asked the woman. He kind of laughed.
"Dinnertime?" It was coupled with a tone like...are you seriously asking me when dinnertime is?! "That's noon until 1." Ah...ok, silly American me. Ok, so Canadians call lunch dinner. And apparently the world shuts down for that one hour every work day. Don't bother staggering your employees' lunch breaks so you can keep the operation running, stick with your approach...yeah, that's the ticket. Hey, who am I to criticize somebody else's work schedule? I work wacked out hours.
I tried to explain my apparent ignorance, "Oh, I'm not from around here, so I'm not familiar with dinnertime."
He went on to comment, "Isn't dinnertime twelve to one everywhere?!" He laughed as if I was from another planet. Boy, how dumb am I for not knowing when this lunch a.k.a. dinnertime is?! Asshole.
I had no desire to get into it with this jackass. Just fix my piece of crap brace and I'll be out of your life for good. Back to the question at hand. "John said he'd have the piece ready around dinnertime. Does that mean I should come back at 11:45?"
"John? John who?" Great. He disappeared for a minute, and finally came back with a friggin planet earth answer. "It'll be ready by noon." Alright, I'm not getting anywhere with this. You close at noon for your stupid ass dogmatic dinnertime thing, so I guess I'll come back at 11:45 like I said. Thanks much for speaking human.
Long story short, the weld was done at 2:45pm. I kid you not. But despite having to interact with these wackos, the repair was friggin perfect! Definitely worth the mental hassle. The weld looked as good as anything I've ever seen...in fact, I figured that front end of the brace was now probably stronger than it was in the first place. If you ever need quality welding done, head on up into the Twilight Zone at PEI and brave the terminology...the workmanship is worth the confusion.
I drove back to the airport, slapped the brace back on, cowled her up again, and that was that. We were ready to head for home the next day, and I could relax a bit about the baffles breaking down. Cracks had started to develop at a few of the weak spots, so I was more than elated to have the brace back on there for the ride home.