Our new series- Pre Buy find of the week! We do a lot a pre-buy inspections and we often find some interesting things that might give a buyer pause. We thoroughly assess the aircraft’s history, records and current state, uncovering any hidden issues or discrepancies. Identifying potential problems before finalizing a purchase helps to mitigate risk, ensures compliance with regulatory standards and provides and transparent understanding of the aircraft’s overall health.
For today's pre-buy- we have questions about rivets. On this Cherokee 140, you can see the standard rivets which match the paint and likely are original from factory. Moving closer to the tail, some kind of repair was done- we can tell from the unpainted, uneven riveting. Not fresh, but obviously replaced.
A similar issue is present on the stabilator. In the video below you can see that 4 of 5 sets of hinges have ben replaced; for 3 of those sets cherry max rivets were used and only one set of solid. And that's despite all the hinge points having full access. Our job to is ask why was this done in the first place, and why the discrepancy in rivets.
The logbooks indicate that that the repair at the rear of the fuselage was done to replace PN 62445-00, but not why it needed replacement. We inspected that work and replacement part, it's good but we want to ask the current owner some more questions about why the replacement was needed in the first place. The mechanic who made this repair was the same who did the far left hinge replacement with solid rivets 2 years earlier and he did record it in the logbook as being loose. However, the other 3 replacements were done several years before that by a different mechanic; those replacements are noted in the logbooks but not why replacement was needed or why they elected to use cherry max. Unfortunately that work was done so long ago with a totally different owner, we may not get answers.
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