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Warning: That clean cockpit smell you love could hide a corrosion nightmare
I worked on a 1998 Cessna 172 last month that had this really nice, almost minty smell inside. The owner was proud of how clean it was. But I pulled up a floor panel near the battery box and found white powder everywhere, like a dusting of baking soda but way more dangerous. That was aluminum corrosion, and it had eaten through about 3 inches of the airframe skin over maybe 4 years based on the logbooks. The owner had been using a citrus-based air freshener that trapped moisture under the carpet. Has anyone else run into hidden corrosion that looked okay from the surface?
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jamiegreen4d ago
Found white crust under seat rails in a 2002 Archer. Looked clean until you pulled the carpet.
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Found white crust under seat rails in a 2002 Archer too, used ACF-50 and never looked back.
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