Spotting Damage on a Skywagon

I am looking at a “no damage history” plane.

I have heard in the past on late model 185s cessna bonded the leading edge and did not rivet- rivets being a clear sign of previous damage.

My question is- where should or should not these rivets exist? Top of the wing? Bottom? Right in center of leading edge? Inboard? Outboard?

Any other spots that are tell tale?

And yes- i will have a competent mechanic who knows wagons do a prebuy/annual if I get there but want to figure this out in advance.

Pictures would be really helpful.

I looked at a no Damage history C180 once. The elevator counter weights were peppered with rock dings but the horizontal leading edges were perfect. Looked under the horizontal and saw all the Cherry rivets. No logbook entry. Should have stopped there cause there was more but can't remember the specifics now.

Cardiff, the leading edges are bonded to the nose ribs. You shouldn’t see rows of rivets on ribs.

There are very few “no damage history” airplanes that are more than 20 years old. There are thousands of “no documented damage history” out there in the same age group!

I would much rather invest in an airplane with damage history that was properly repaired and documented than one advertised as “no damage history”. I ran shops where all we did was structural repairs. Many of the airplanes we got in the door had evidence of prior damage besides what we were charged with fixing. Much of it done wrong and no log book entries or 337s.

Look at several airplanes of the same model. Check carefully for where cherry max rivets are. Excessive use of cherry rivets is one of the first giveaways that there was a problem. Check where the skin lap joints are. Lap joints that aren’t where the factory put them is a clear sign there was damage, and a possibility that the damage wasn’t repaired correctly. Check symmetry of the airplane. You don’t necessarily need to get a tape measure out, but stand both directly in front of and behind the airplane and look carefully. Do both sides look the same? Are there trim tabs on the controls that were not installed at the factory? Do the ailerons match side for side? Do the flaps match side for side? Controls that don’t match could be a sign that someone needed to play with the rigging to get the airplane to fly straight after repairs.

There are a lot of little clues to finding the “no documented damage history” airplanes that have been fixed. It takes a keen eye and knowledge of the specific make and model.


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Cardiff, when looking at any Skywagon, here are a few tips.

Look for smoking rivets, chipped or worn paint around rivets, or fresh paint around rivets.
Push on the tail and check for any movement of the tail spring where it enters the stinger shoud and between tailwheel head and tail spring.
Look for wrinkles or movement where main gear enters the gear boxes.
Pay attention to oil canning on the wing tops. It’s common but it shouldn’t be concentrated in one area.
Grab the horizontals and give them a lift. Any play in the jack screws?
Any tracks from aft float fittings? Look for skin wrinkles.
Look for corrosion. It may be powdery or grainy texture around screws, rivets, and seams. Look for pock marks under the paint if it’s been repainted.

Find a good Skywagon mechanic to look it over before you commit to spending money to move forward.

Don't forget to check the logs to make sure that the tail AD has been complied with correctly.

sj

Don’t put too much stock in “no damage history.”It doesn’t mean the same thing to everyone, and when properly repaired? Old damage is insignificant. My 180 went on its back on takeoff when it was very young. I had an extremely well qualified mechanic look it over and his opinion was the rebuild was better than factory for quality of work. The guy who did the rebuild is a local legend and when my guy called him to ask about it, the rebuilder told him if I didn’t buy it, he would. Said it was the best flying Skywagon he’d had. My guy politely hung up and told me to buy it. I’ve never regretted it. Years later another local legend painted it. I had a peek at his notes from his initial estimate. One word. “Clean.” Find your airplane equivalent of soul mate. Your family won’t ever want to let it go.

Look to see that the horizontal trim index rivet is in place on the pilot's side. It's an odd non-structural rivet from the factory and it should be just ahead of the leading edge of the horizontal stab, its used to determine and set neutral (take-off) trim and is only on the pilot's side. In the event of a skin replacement, I'm told by a very wise Sky Wagon guy that it often does not get put back in place.

The absolute best money you'll ever spend on an aircraft is for a good pre-purchase inspection, conducted by an expert on the "breed" of aircraft. As others have said, the term "no damage history" is somewhat meaningless. Ask for an electronic copy of logs, look those over carefully. If they appear legit, and by that I mean they are more complete than just a brief "I inspected this aircraft and found it airworthy" kind of statement each year, then consider the next step, which is a pre-purchase. I've seen logs that didn't have hardly anything noted, except the mandatory annual inspections, on a forty year old airplane. How is that even possible?

MTV

This corrosion or wax?

And how about what looks like a leak on a wetwing? Big deal?

Cardiff Kook said:

This corrosion or wax?

Click to expand...

Looks like wax, rub it and see if it comes off.
DENNY

That green stain on a wet wing is an issue for me.

Gary

If truly wet wings? I’ll defer to someone with experience with them. If bladders? Easy enough to fix regardless of the origin.

I prefer bladders.

BC12D-4-85 said:

That green stain on a wet wing is an issue for me.

Gary

Click to expand...

Hey Gary- can you expand?

Its a wet wing

Not A&P but the bladder wings I've seen leak tend to stain at the wing root due to dihedral flowing the gas downhill. Some leak around the quick drain. Open the fill cap and look for bladder (black rubber) or wet wing (see metal tank bottom and sloshing compound) with flashlight. Cessna makes a sealer for wet wings. Don't know how to do that, but there's a removable inspection cover(s) that I recall seeing.

Gary

Cardiff Kook said:

Hey Gary- can you expand?

Its a wet wing

Click to expand...

Ask a wet wing A&P. Note my comments above. I have seen and heard of rivets that leak being sealed from inside the tank...but ask an expert. I'm just a pilot. When I flew a wet wing I made sure the pitchforks didn't poke a hole.

Gary

OLDCROWE said:

Look to see that the horizontal trim index rivet is in place on the pilot's side. It's an odd non-structural rivet from the factory and it should be just ahead of the leading edge of the horizontal stab, its used to determine and set neutral (take-off) trim and is only on the pilot's side. In the event of a skin replacement, I'm told by a very wise Sky Wagon guy that it often does not get put back in place.

Click to expand...

What year did they start doing this?
I'm pretty sure there's not such a rivet on my 53 model.

1979 was first wet wing year

Oh- you meant the rivet on the stab

Your “spot” is a good example of things to look for that aren’t damage. It may be relatively young for a 185 but it’s far from new.

Some notes about the sale…

When you find a good airplane it’s okay to make a move towards a purchase agreement before you have all the details ironed out. You likely can’t get all the concerns and issues discovered and remedied quickly and it’s possible another person may enter into a purchase agreement. So make the agreement contingent upon a satisfactory pre-buy inspection! That’s an industry standard. Small surprises don’t kill the sale And if surprises are discovered and the seller refuses to adjust the price then back out of the sale.

Then the aircraft is off the market while you perform this necessary step. The downside of this method is the time and the cost of the pre buy and risk of an emotional roller coaster. The airplane is still for sale until that agreement is signed. Don’t contract anyone to do the prebuy while it’s still on the market. When you contract with a mechanic the seller should be dealing only with you.

The owner controls the rules of the sale, but you can influence the rules and understand how the seller will act. A nice honest seller will promise not to sell it before you can come look at it. That’s the best scenario.

While there are things you as a buyer can look at and see have issues, the fuel leak for one, there are many things that you might look at and not even notice, or not understand what you are seeing- the wax vs corrosion as an example. Mechanics with great experience can look at a picture and tell you lots about things that you might never see...

Bottom line, my experience has been it is far easier and less expensive to send a top quality mechanic to look at the plane before I am going to look at it. I get an agreement worked out, have the logs sent, (scanned and emailed works wonders), and pay the mechanic to look through them. Then if all that works out send the mechanic that looked through the logs so they can verify logs and plane say the same thing.

An example of mechanic paying for themselves I was buying a plane with a 700 smoh engine, overhauled due to a prop strike. When we got the logs I looked through them satisfied, (I found lots of errors in the advertisement vs. logs by the way myself) the mechanic looks at the overhaul information and the form heading says "overhaul" sheet or something, but in the written signed text it said "Prop Strike Inspection". A four hundred hour difference in engine time since overhaul.

There was a large price adjustment for that difference in time. Without the mechanic that would not have been caught.

Now as I am recovering the plane I am finding things that were covered up on repairs. Nothing serious, or that a body hammer and time won't fix. Mostly cosmetic also. Still a solid purchase that served me well.

But, bottom line the best mechanic you can hire is the best money you will spend. Sometimes a $2,000 fuel repair might be the only thing to fix- and you then have a beauty like Stewart is fortunate enough to have. Other times that fuel leak is only one of a long list of repairs that will be continuous.

OLDCROWE said:

Look to see that the horizontal trim index rivet is in place on the pilot's side. It's an odd non-structural rivet from the factory and it should be just ahead of the leading edge of the horizontal stab, its used to determine and set neutral (take-off) trim and is only on the pilot's side. In the event of a skin replacement, I'm told by a very wise Sky Wagon guy that it often does not get put back in place.

Click to expand...

hotrod180 said:

What year did they start doing this?
I'm pretty sure there's not such a rivet on my 53 model.

Click to expand...

I double-checked my 53 model, no rivet.
I looked in my 1962 & earlier maintenance manual,
there was no mention of an indexing rivet in the instructions for rigging the trim.
But when I was messing with the trim wheel a while back,
I used a white paint marker & a sharpie to put indexing marks on the leading edge of the stab & the fuselage.