Is this corrosion or a gasket?

[DustinNwind]

Hi all, I've been lurking in the background of mooneyspace for the 6 months as I look for my next plane. I'm pretty set on a m20 for many obvious reason I don't need to sell you on. I went to look at a mooney this morning and saw this (photo attached) - is this corrosion or a tank gasket? Photo is under the port side wheel well on the front wall of the wheel well. Your help would be greatly appreciated. 

 

-Dustin

 

[MB65E]

Needs a new spar cap and more. Don’t buy it!!

Its sad to see but that’s a parts airplane!! 

-Matt

[Andy95W]

Run, don't walk, from this airplane.  Unfortunately, this is one of the classic spots where you'll find corrosion that completely disqualifies a Mooney from having a long life.

[N201MKTurbo]

I would find another plane.

There is no gasket on the tank, just sealant. 

It looks like corrosion and that is the spar cap. 

Either way, if it is sealant or corrosion, you should run.

[carusoam]

Good catch, Dustin!

Inviting @M20Doc to have a looksee...

Unfortunately, That won’t change what is in the pic.

Best regards,

-a-

[1964-M20E]

If it is that bad there I would hate to see other areas.  Not good Chuck.

Just for grins mate do you have other photos of said plane.  You might be wantin' to share them with the group.  Unless of course it belongs to someone on the site.

 

 

 

 

[carusoam]

@gsxrpilot has a list...

-a-

[StevenL757]

55 minutes ago, DustinNwind said:

Hi all, I've been lurking in the background of mooneyspace for the 6 months as I look for my next plane. I'm pretty set on a m20 for many obvious reason I don't need to sell you on. I went to look at a mooney this morning and saw this (photo attached) - is this corrosion or a tank gasket? Photo is under the port side wheel well on the front wall of the wheel well. Your help would be greatly appreciated. 

-Dustin

I see dollar signs - plain and simple.

"Run, Dustin, run".

Steve

[jaylw314]

I didn't know that was the spar cap, but I saw those big AN4 rivets next to it and figured it wasn't good...

25 minutes ago, 1964-M20E said:

Not good Chuck.

Is that a Peanuts reference?

[orionflt]

from the picture that looks like inter granular corrosion, nothing you want to mess with. if it was sealant I would want to know why they were applying sealant in that area....also not a good thing.

Brian

[Guest]

Sadly it’s another donor aircraft for the rest of the fleet.  Call the scrap yard.

Clarence

[DustinNwind]

Thanks guys, I really appreciate the quick feedback. It's a friend of a friends plane and scary to know that it went up today with 4 people and full luggage on a long cross country. Hope to join the Mooney Fam soon. Again, thank you all so much.

 

Dustin

[Guest]

15 minutes ago, DustinNwind said:

Thanks guys, I really appreciate the quick feedback. It's a friend of a friends plane and scary to know that it went up today with 4 people and full luggage on a long cross country. Hope to join the Mooney Fam soon. Again, thank you all so much.

 

Dustin

You’d be doing the owner and any of his passengers a big favour by telling him to take a bus home before his plane kills someone.

Clarence

[bradp]

Is that thing for sale?  Is the owner representing that area as a gasket?

Owner shouldn't sell for anything less than scrap value in good conscious.  A donor wing is needed. 

You may be wise to post the N number on the site.  I would not want anyone to buy and fly that thing.

[DustinNwind]

5 minutes ago, bradp said:

Is that thing for sale?  Is the owner representing that area as a gasket?

Owner shouldn't sell for anything less than scrap value in good conscious.  A donor wing is needed. 

You may be wise to post the N number on the site.  I would not want anyone to buy and fly that thing.

It's not on the open market and he didn't know it existed till this AM when I started looking around (so I'm told). I sent him a text letting him know the severity of the situation, now it's in his hands how he handles it. I wouldn't even put a donor wing on this as I've never seen that much corrosion before - who knows how deep and where else it is on the plane. 

[jaylw314]

34 minutes ago, DustinNwind said:

It's not on the open market and he didn't know it existed till this AM when I started looking around (so I'm told). I sent him a text letting him know the severity of the situation, now it's in his hands how he handles it. I wouldn't even put a donor wing on this as I've never seen that much corrosion before - who knows how deep and where else it is on the plane. 

Yeah, I looked at one for a prebuy, and the inspector came out and told me "you know, I'm not supposed to say this sort of thing, but this is not your plane."  Corrosion on some of the control surfaces as well as the control rods, among a host of other fairly significant problems, although only one or two were airworthiness issues.

That being said, I wouldn't put out a name or number if the plane wasn't on the open market, and even then I'd think twice (or three times).  Aside from the small but real possibility of being sued for slander, you don't know truthfully what the owner is going to do after you tell him what you saw.  Even if it's unlikely to be repaired, there are always some people that do, and you don't know ahead of time that he or she's not one of them.  Besides, it's the responsibility of whoever looks at a plane to exercise their own due diligence, and if the owner is a bad apple and tries to hide the problem, I would expect there are other significant issues that are just as or more obvious.

[Yetti]

A great example of intergranular corrosion. 

 

 

 

[Niko182]

4 hours ago, DustinNwind said:

Thanks guys, I really appreciate the quick feedback. It's a friend of a friends plane and scary to know that it went up today with 4 people and full luggage on a long cross country. Hope to join the Mooney Fam soon. Again, thank you all so much.

 

Dustin

thats pretty sketchy. don't really want to see a repeat of what happened to the embry riddle piper.

[ArtVandelay]

How does that pass an annual inspection?

[gsxrpilot]

I certainly wouldn't want to be the owner of that poor Mooney. But from personal experience, while it's a bitch, it's not terminal. I had a spot of similar corrosion on the spar cap. At the end of the day, the repair was to clean it out completely by grinding down to clean metal and completely removing all corrosion. Then a doubler of certain size/thickness with a specific number/size of rivets was prescribed. The entire process including the DER, and the repair and return to service was only $2600.

Also talking with Don Maxwell and Dave at AirMods, they say these are fixed all the time. But it's best to get it early because it will continue to grow and spread if not addressed. And can of course, get very expensive.

This assumes the corrosion is limited to the spar CAP and isn't on the Spar itself. 

[Guest]

If this in on anything less than a 231/252 it’s likely not worth the cost of repairing it.

Clarence

[gsxrpilot]

1 minute ago, M20Doc said:

If this in on anything less than a 231/252 it’s likely not worth the cost of repairing it.

Clarence

True... sad but true.

[1964-M20E]

Hey if there are not other major issues with the air frame and it could be fixed for 3 to 5AMUs I'd say get it fixed but I would use a different IA before making that decision.  Remember we as pilots are the final say if the plane is airworthy.  The IA who inspected this plane, while he may not be correct, may truly in his opinion feel it is airworthy for this year.  Next year he might say no.  We do not know what is going on in his mind.  Maybe it was a pencil whipped annual who knows but the owner and the IA.

While you don't want to let this continue our planes are remarkably resilient to abuse and neglect.  I had a 65E that I acquired with my hangar that spent many years idle.  I ended up scraping it. 

Before I scraped it I took the opportunity to try and abuse it, on the ground of course. I walked all over the wings in between ribs and spars, jumped up and down on the wing tip causing the other wheel to leave the ground.  Nary a scratch on it.  When I put the saw to it I met with resistance me every inch of the way.  It pained me that it was fighting so hard to stay together even at the end of it s useful life.

[orionflt]

4 minutes ago, 1964-M20E said:

When I put the saw to it I met with resistance me every inch of the way.  It pained me that it was fighting so hard to stay together even at the end of it s useful life.

That may be true, that airplane may seem solid right up to the point of failure, and that is the issue. with the corrosion in the spar we can not predict where that new failure point is and when it will be reached. the other thing about failures under stress is they do not always give additional signs that failure is immanent especially with intergranular corrosion. when the failure does occur,  the kinetic energy being released during the failure can and will cause cascading damage to other areas.  

Brian 

[orionflt]

5 minutes ago, Freemasm said:

Hadn’t given this a two sided thought until now. The quote from a few comments back;

”Remember we as pilots are the final say if the plane is airworthy.“

In reality is only half true (to me). A pilot “over ruling” an A&P or IA only makes sense to me in one direction. Can anyone think of an instance where it would be prudent for a pilot to fly an aircraft an inspector found unairworthy? 

BTW. That IG corrosion didn’t happen within one annual cycle; assuming it was getting annualled

As an A&P/IA I tend to agree with you, but there are exceptions. I have found AD's that were not complied with on Prebuys, technically the airplane is not airworthy but depending on the AD it is still safe to fly (example: stand by vacuum system). I am not going to make the owner pay me to do the inspection, but I will give him all the information he needs to make an informed decision. 

If I find an item that is a safety issue I will do everything I can to dissuade the pilot from flying the aircraft until it is corrected. if the pilot feels I am incorrect in my assessment, I am more then willing to get other qualified options.  

Brian