voretaq7
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Jun 30, 2011
- Messages
- 1,793
- Reaction score
- 521
Sure, I take the plane out for a nice trip and something breaks!
At least it's nothing too critical: The fresh air vent door has separated from the arm that controls it. 51 years of metal fatigue seems to have done in the arm (#13 in the parts diagram below), and it broke at the bend just short of where it's riveted to the door (#14).
I'll need to crawl under the panel to get a better look at the airbox & make the repair so this is probably getting deferred to next year when I have the interior out for annual & can get down there more easily, but if any of you folks ever did a repair to this assembly I'll take any tips/suggestions. (If someone with an older-model Cherokee happens to have a good close-up photo of the assembly from the inside that would be helpful too - the parts manual diagram below is not the greatest, and I think my vent was "modified" at some point over the years).
At the moment my thinking is it should be easy enough to replace the arm with a new one (bend an appropriate bit of aluminum, drill out the rivet holding the other bit to the door, and attach the new arm - either riveting it in place again or replacing that with a stainless screw & washer/locknut). And then I'll have to do the first touch up to my nice new paint job :-?
At least it's nothing too critical: The fresh air vent door has separated from the arm that controls it. 51 years of metal fatigue seems to have done in the arm (#13 in the parts diagram below), and it broke at the bend just short of where it's riveted to the door (#14).
I'll need to crawl under the panel to get a better look at the airbox & make the repair so this is probably getting deferred to next year when I have the interior out for annual & can get down there more easily, but if any of you folks ever did a repair to this assembly I'll take any tips/suggestions. (If someone with an older-model Cherokee happens to have a good close-up photo of the assembly from the inside that would be helpful too - the parts manual diagram below is not the greatest, and I think my vent was "modified" at some point over the years).
At the moment my thinking is it should be easy enough to replace the arm with a new one (bend an appropriate bit of aluminum, drill out the rivet holding the other bit to the door, and attach the new arm - either riveting it in place again or replacing that with a stainless screw & washer/locknut). And then I'll have to do the first touch up to my nice new paint job :-?
