Maintenance Mini Post
One of the struts under the master cabin bed was leaking hydraulic fluid. These are sealed, pressurized struts that are not supposed to be serviced. But, North Pacific put me in touch with Strutwise in BC, which seems to be the one place in the world that can recondition these things. Their prices seemed ok, but UPS quoted me almost $500 to ship them there and back (double the price of a new strut). I considered just replacing the struts with new ones, but these use an uncommon leaf mount design instead of the standard ball-and-socket of cheaper struts, so I would have to build a whole new customized mount to get them to fit. Luckily, I was able to send them via UPS for about $70 with a special “return for repair” flag. I think having them reconditioned cost about the same as ordering a new strut. But, those would have taken months to get here.
I sent both back so they could be correctly balanced. Strutwise turned them around in a few weeks and I got them back under the bed without issue.
Except, now the strut on the cockpit hatch is leaking….
