My fault, I missed that part of the story. The problem with just saying "hey your boot looks bad" is that when you post, the story keeps not matching the pictures. The fact that the paint shop just painted over the hinge and jackscrew, including all hardware - points me to the fact that this was not what would be considered a quality paint job completed by a reputable shop (all of which remove and replace nearly all hardware. That entire area should have been masked off, but inexplicably it was not. Typically when you paint an aircraft all flight surfaces, panels, and controls are removed and painted separately and re-installed with new hardware - That is why I say (and still say) you should look closely at the assembly of the flight controls. Clearly this paint shop cut corners. Did they disassemble as per the norm or did they paint in place? did they paint the hardware or did they replace the hardware - and if they replaced it was it assembled properly.
You have already found one thing that potentially could have killed you, and has killed others in the past. You have described a non working NAV system that clearly was not working properly when you bought it (a flipped cable like that would likely not have worked). All I'm saying is that the story told from the previous owner is not adding up, and the further you dig the more you are finding. Some things are clearly obvious, others, like a potentially improperly re-assembled elevator or weight assembly which requires specific procedures to be completed after painting, might not be so obvious.
Did you fly it at the pre-buy?
