Woe is Mule

About a year ago, the museum received a hydraulic mule as a donation. It has everything you'd want in a mule: dual systems, high pressure and flow with control over each, and filters so that contamination in one aircraft doesn't migrate to others.


The mule, aka "Smurfette", needed quite a bit of work... new electrical cable, new filters, and new hoses and fittings. Sometimes when things are donated you wonder what might be wrong with them. Well, today we found out what's wrong with Smurfette: Cracked pump housing. Really sprayed fluid like crazy when we turned it on.


Cracked isn't the half of it... the end cap on the housing is completely busted into three pieces. No worries, tho', looks like there are plenty of places to get Dowty pump replacement parts on the net.