180-182-185 Tailcone AD...

As an old mechanic friend says? Good mechanics have been doing this inspection for decades.
 
Yep. Mines already been taken care of. But my girl's a pincessna, never been on skis/floats/phat tahrs.

That being said, I've heard two ways. I've heard some guys strip all of the paint/corrosion protection back there and put in dye penetrant to look for cracks... other guys just clean it up and look around. What level of inspection have you guys seen?
 
Mtns2Skies said:
Yep. Mines already been taken care of. But my girl's a pincessna, never been on skis/floats/phat tahrs.

That being said, I've heard two ways. I've heard some guys strip all of the paint/corrosion protection back there and put in dye penetrant to look for cracks... other guys just clean it up and look around. What level of inspection have you guys seen?
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Visual, with lots of light and magnification. Dye-penetrant on the trim jack aluminum bearing blocks. If there was any suspicion that the stab has seen any load beyond what it has to do to control the airplane, I'd want a lot of dye-pen done to the hinges, spar and internal diagonal doublers and the jackscrew attach brackets on the forward spar. And to do it right, the fin and rudder need to come off and the elevator and stab removed. It's a bad spot to get a good look at a lot of it.

Those airplanes came out with no access panel under the tail in the jackscrew bay. Cessna has a service kit to install one, and I've done several. It saves a lot of time overall and encourages better inspections and maintenance of the trim jacks. I've also seen illegally-cut round holes in that spot, which weakens the tail quite a bit. The Cessna kit puts a thick doubler there to transfer the loads around the rectangular hole. https://support.cessna.com/custsupt/contacts/pubs/ourpdf.pdf?as_id=29417
 
Dan Thomas said:
Those airplanes came out with no access panel under the tail in the jackscrew bay. Cessna has a service kit to install one, and I've done several. It saves a lot of time overall and encourages better inspections and maintenance of the trim jacks. I've also seen illegally-cut round holes in that spot, which weakens the tail quite a bit. The Cessna kit puts a thick doubler there to transfer the loads around the rectangular hole. https://support.cessna.com/custsupt/contacts/pubs/ourpdf.pdf?as_id=29417
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One of the first things I did to my plane was install that service kit as well as the STC for the pair of upper inspection panels.
 
Mtns2Skies said:
One of the first things I did to my plane was install that service kit as well as the STC for the pair of upper inspection panels.
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Good stuff. The upper panels were a factory installation in those airplanes that had the rudder-centering augmenting spring system. I can't offhand remember the name they gave to that system, but it allowed Cessna to eliminate the additional lower tail fin for float installations. The upper access panels allowed access to the springs and pulleys in the top of the aft tailcone.

Found it. The nonlinear air rudder return spring system. https://support.cessna.com/custsupt/contacts/pubs/ourpdf.pdf?as_id=34920
 
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Tail Cone Angle Replacement Kit for Cessna 180 and 185

FAA-PMA: PQ05421NM

STC: SA02522AK
 
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