New Cessna 150 Owner
- Thread starter Murdoughnut
- Start date
Murdoughnut
Well sized member
good luck. in my experience it takes two maybe three annuals to figure out all the head scratchers/shoddy repairs from its previous life, may they be insignificant and inexpensive
People knock flight school planes, but when this one was such a plane, it did appear to get very thorough MX according to the logs. It mostly sat for two years after that, and got pencil whipped annuals, so that's mostly what I'm dealing with now. Fingers crossed that it's just neglect items.
Richman
JC’s Resident Curmudgeon
“The Adeptus Mechanicus prays to gears, and blesses toasters with holy cheers”
killbilly
Vocals, Lyrics, Triangle, Washboard, Kittens
If your shop is amenable to it I highly recommend that you participate
Murdoughnut
Well sized member
My work and travel schedule will make that tough, but possibly once I see the list of recommended repairs.
killbilly
Vocals, Lyrics, Triangle, Washboard, Kittens
See if you can. My old shop used to let me do as much as I wanted under the supervision of the mechanic and I learned a ton. Some shops do that some don’t, but I would take every opportunity to learn your machine with a wrench in your hand.
Murdoughnut
Well sized member
Wrong deities apparently - it was no bueno. About $12K in airworthy repairs. To be fair, a third of that is repair to a crack in the seat pan, which my A&P found when he initially poked around the plane. Recommended repairs would add another $11K if I did them all.
Surprised, but not shocked. The plane sat for two years outside, and the purchase price was about $10K less than other comparably equipped planes (largely due to the first airframe log covering through 1991 missing). Am pissed what the pre-buy mechanic has cost me in all the things he missed, though. Lesson learned. My guy found loose bolts and even some blue work towels just hanging out in the wing, which is scary AF.
Going to try to get this down to about $15K. The cables all have signs of corrosion, so he quoted me recommended rates for replacements, but they may be able to be cleaned and salvaged - TBD. That would help for sure. Other corrosion was manageable and spar looked good.
Surprised, but not shocked. The plane sat for two years outside, and the purchase price was about $10K less than other comparably equipped planes (largely due to the first airframe log covering through 1991 missing). Am pissed what the pre-buy mechanic has cost me in all the things he missed, though. Lesson learned. My guy found loose bolts and even some blue work towels just hanging out in the wing, which is scary AF.
Going to try to get this down to about $15K. The cables all have signs of corrosion, so he quoted me recommended rates for replacements, but they may be able to be cleaned and salvaged - TBD. That would help for sure. Other corrosion was manageable and spar looked good.
Richman
JC’s Resident Curmudgeon
I sympathize. “New to you” aircraft cost at least 10% of the purchase price in “fix it items” after purchase, but it has a hard floor of about $10k regardless of price.
I think I was into my Bonanza for about $20k post purchase to fix up all, including the nice-to-fix items, getting the AC going, and a complete going through of the gear system.
I’ve found that I’m the one that needs the flashlight and crawl around in the airframe for any pre-purchase. Care for an airframe leaves tell tale signs that tells you if something has been looked after. If they ignore one area, it’s probably more than just that. A&Ps look at the micro, I look at the macro.
Murdoughnut
Well sized member
Yeah, it's a bummer, but I at least console myself in the fact that I do believe I'll be able to recoup a portion of the investment, as I bought the plane on the cheap.
Have an idea I'm going to discuss with the A&P tomorrow. There are a few "airworthy" items that aren't passable for an annual, but aren't a legitimate risk to safety right now - namely the crack in the seat pan on the co-pilot side, which is about $4,200. The aircraft isn't legally due for annual until May 2026. I only did this annual early because there were enough unknowns that I wanted my A&P to take it apart.
Going to talk to him tomorrow about him not signing off on the annual, and instead scheduling one for May ... then having him do the $10-$12K in work that I believe really needs to be done to make me feel comfortable flying it now, and the remaining airworthy items in May.
Richman
JC’s Resident Curmudgeon
I looked at a plane recently that, on paper, had all the right things done. Once I started looking poking around, I could tell the owner had just thrown money at specific items without looking at the airframe holistically.
IMHO, it was going to be a $40k job to address everything to earn a Richman seal of approval. Took some pictures and shared them with a shop I really trust and the shop owner quoted a price that was darn close to that. Granted, most were not airworthiness items, but the kind of stuff you need to look after otherwise it develops it to AW items.
That said, had the seller been willing to work with me, there was a deal there, but alas, no.
killbilly
Vocals, Lyrics, Triangle, Washboard, Kittens
Y'know, this also makes me wonder if you can kill a couple of birds with one stone....like, will they let you do certain things on your own and then just charge you for time spent examining/signing off what you do and/or any guidance provided? Might save a little bit of money, and it would cost you some time, but there may be some real value in that for you. Example - my local shop charged me a standard shop rate to teach me how to change my own oil on the airplane, including the safety wiring techniques.
Don't know how mechanically inclined you are; personally, I love turning wrenches and getting dirty with the airplane, but that's just me.
Murdoughnut
Well sized member
Some good news - the corrosion on the control cables was able to be cleaned/treated and it hadn't penetrated the steel. That results in $360 in labor to clean then instead of $4,800 to replace them.
Now looking to get out of this for hopefully around $9K. Since the plane is still legal till May, I deferred the annual until then, which will give me time to find the funds to pay to have the seat pan repaired ($4K-$5K).
Now looking to get out of this for hopefully around $9K. Since the plane is still legal till May, I deferred the annual until then, which will give me time to find the funds to pay to have the seat pan repaired ($4K-$5K).