Looking at a 75 8KCAB in prebuy

[vupilot]

Hello, I have a 8KCAB in prebuy. Any of these wood spar pictures show any deal breakers for you guys? This shows both sides of one rib near the rear spar strut attach and the top of the spar in same area on the opposite wing. Magnified under borescope. I think I see a tiny bit of corrosion on a rib and some vanish flaking on the top of the spar at the doubler but curious what those more experienced have to say.

 

[Bob Turner]

A deal breaker would be a spar crack, or evidence of a compression crack. If that is the worst corrosion on the entire wing I would guess it is a pretty clean wing.

 

[vupilot]

Thank you Bob. Yes, we inspected the spar for half a day and this was all that really caught our borescope eye. But neither myself or my IA helping me are all that familiar with a wood spar 8KCAB in particular. My flying experience is mostly all late model ACA and his maintenance experience is all 7AC. Its a good looking mid-1990's recover.

 

[Bob Turner]

Rainbow Ron says the Decathlon spars have never been a problem. It is the Scout that has had failures. While I am not an enthusiastic Bellanca Citabria club member I recommend their treatise with photos on the compression crack issue.

7AC has the same AD, but it is not recurrent below some relatively low horsepower. Your IA has to be familiar with this issue.

 

[vupilot]

Familiar in textual format yes, we have read all we can but have little experience with our eyes on the spars in regard to the AD on Decathlon/Citabria.

 

[Bob Turner]

Okay - go here:

https://www.bellanca-championclub.com/articles/disappointing-wing-spar-ad

Look at the photos. Then you will be as expert as anybody on the planet. These things are not all that common; most of us have never seen or been remotely close to an actual compression crack.
Note the last picture - it is not the discolored area - you will see an actual crack to the left of that.

If your Dec has not experienced a traumatic contact with a fencepost while taxiing, you are not likely to find a compression crack. Decathlons are not "off airport" airplanes.

Hope that helps - I am going flying . . .

 

[Bob Turner]

PS - wait for a couple more opinions before you pull the trigger - there are lots of knowledgable folks here.

And if you are not a high time tailwheel guy, get 25 hours in the pattern with someone who is a high time tailwheel pilot.

 

[vupilot]

Thanks for that link. I had not seen that one but the pictures are similar to what I had seen elsewhere. We saw nothing like that but it is difficult to inspect every inch. We were aware of the common areas and I think we got all those.