Early PA-28 Corrosion.

F20MX · Joined: Dec 31, 2005 Posts: 1 Location: USA

In the shop the past couple of months we've been doing some work on an Early PA-28-180 (serial number in the 1000 range). One of the things we did was send the stabilator out to be reskinned and in the course of having it out I happened to look inside the tailcone from the rear (usually impossible to see).

Sitting in the bottom of the tailcone was part of a corroded pulley bracket for the trim cables. When I looked up to where it should have been I was quite shocked to see the top stringer heavily corroded, likewise with the bulkhead where the front end of the vertical stab attaches.

So we began drilling out the stringer and once we had that out we went to drill out the bracket that the tail mounts to. I barely touched it and it just fell off, it was that corroded. the bulkhead and stringer are aluminum and the bracket, clamped between them, is steel so it's not surprising that it corroded after 40 years. The new parts from Piper are painted so it shouldn't be a problem again.

The reason I am writing this post is because we checked every cherokee that we had around the shop and they all had the same corrosion to some degree, some that had lived dry for most their lives were in better shape but they ALL had it. If you work on one of these I would strongly suggest you take a look back there. With the stabilator on you wont be able to see it from the rear, you'll probably have to send someone skinny back into the tailcone with a flashlight. You wont see it from the baggage bin. I'll get some photos tomorrow of the area for reference.

Cheers!

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