Richard Kutzner:
Hi all, I’m new to the group, brand new to plane ownership and I am really glad I found you all! I have a quick question …
Back ground:
I placed a refundable deposit on an A-23, balance pending certification of “air-worthiness.” A local FBO was hired for pre-buy (pre-purchse) inspection/Annual.
Results of inspection:
* Surface corrosion on right hand wing root. (Needs to be
“polished out and primed?” Mechanics words)
* Corrosion in battery box.
* Possible cracks on exhaust? (not sure where/what)
* Shock donuts are dead/flat/kaput.
My question would be: are any of these items deal breakers? What should I expect the seller to cover?
Editor:
You are probably looking at $1,500 to $3,000 for the shock donuts, depending on where you get the parts and who does the work.
If the exhaust system has problems, it can range from $50 to weld a small end-plate crack, through a few hundred bucks for some gasket replacement, through $2,000 for replacement with an overhauled system, to several times that if cylinder studs are shot and the jugs must be pulled for repair or replacement (if the cylinders warrant replacement, as opposed to jigged-up flange refacing and stud replacement).
Any mention of corrosion makes me very nervous. True light surface corrosion, usually in the form of filiform (little “worm tracks” under the paint), is usually no big deal if not widespread and caught early. “Patch corrosion”, forming under larger areas of bubbled paint, is of much more concern, as it implies a wider range of issues (serious contamination under the paint, corrosion extruding from inside parts, lack of any previous airframe corrosion treatment, etc.). Please make absolutely certain that the technician has thoroughly inspected all areas of the wing spars for corrosion. Ditto for under the interior side panels, under the glareshield below the windshield (in the instrument panel area), and under the floorboards everywhere the old black air ducts touch anything.
The battery box problem is pretty common. It will have to be removed for proper repair, to prevent recurrence. Once fixed, the best prevention is to replace the battery with a sealed AGM battery from Concord or Gill (Aviation Consumer recommends Concord). Much more about this on the BAC website (corrosion and batteries).
Aside from pervasive corrosion, nothing has to be a deal-breaker on a plane purchase. Nearly everything else is repairable. The question is how much and by whom. Buyers should accept cosmetic faults, if the price is right and they know what they are accepting. Significant mechanical repairs are another story. The seller won’t be as motivated as the buyer to get them fixed the right way, so the buyer is wise to remain involved. However, the seller should bear the brunt of the expense, unless the price is being lowered to accommodate the buyer’s repair liability.
Keep in mind that virtually anything you accept for future repair will likely surprise you by what it costs later. Even low-end interior refurbishment (carpets, seat covers, side panels) will almost certainly exceed $2,000, even if you can do much of the R&R work. Low-end paint will start around $6,000 for a complete strip and repaint. Slide-in replacement digital radios will run about $1,500 and up. A complete radio stack upgrade will probably start around $10,000 and climb from there. Installing even a simple autopilot will probably start around $5,000.
Also keep in mind that the A23 has the Continental IO346. It’s a good fuel-injected engine with good performance, but major parts (crank, cam, case) have been out of production for many years. Few shops can set up the fuel pump pressure and injection system properly; as long as it is working right, that won’t matter. If it is dying on roll-out, or under other circumstances such as cold starts or during taxi, that’s a different story. The engine life (TBO) is much shorter on the Continental, compared to the Lycoming engines (1,500 versus the Lycoming’s 2,000 hours). There are a handful of recommended engine shops that work on them. Spares surface periodically on eBay, usually by folks selling off spares or parting out an airplane. Relatively speaking, very few of these engines were ever made. Aside from the Beech A23 and A23A, they only went into a couple of other small airframes. Only about 550 of the 2,390 Model 23 airframes came with this engine; the rest all have Lycomings. As a result, the prices of the A23 and A23A tend to be lower, whether you are buying or selling. Nothing inherently wrong with that, as long as you understand “why”.