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I do understand your frustration with refurbishing your aircraft. I've had a similar situation with my aircraft. I have a 1966 337-A and I bought it for a low price of 46,000. I knew buying at that price I would have to perform some repairs, but I don’t think I was prepared for the amount of effort I would have to put in. I expected that any repairs to aircraft would be like repairing my car. I drop it off and one mechanic would work on it until finished. I instead found repair required a lot of leg work and research on my part, most parts are not kept at the A&P shop (no NAPA to deliver components in an hour), components and repairs are expensive, and repairs are not done quickly. I think my biggest frustration comes from how long it takes to do anything in aviation. The only think fast about it are the airplanes themselves.
I did some quick calculations before I bought the aircraft on operations and maintenance cost and compared it to flying commercially and rental. What I determine from that exercise was that there was no way to justify purchasing the aircraft if financial concerns were my only reason. I just count it as one of those passions in my life that makes no financial sense, and most of the time I'm comfortable with that.
I purchased my aircraft in March 2007 and since then I've had 3 annuals, all expensive. To be fair I also think of items to add to my annual during the year and have my A&P fix them.
First year and annual:
1. Landing gear system seals were leaking and all the o-rings had to be replaced.
2. Rear muffler had to be replaced.
3. Lots of obvious small problems had to be taken care off
Second year and annual:
1. Several engine injector fuel lines had cracks and had to be replaced.
2. I (after help from this forum) tracked down my electrical problems by replacing battery, voltage regs, clearing all connections, and found the rear alternator was not working. (On the old skymaster, one alternator can't supply the needs of the aircraft, so circuit breakers kept popping) So the rear alternator was replaced
3. Rear spinner disintegrated during flight, so had to buy a new one, front one was also show signs of failing. The front spinner was replaced.
Third year and annual (still occurring):
1. Rigging was corrected
2. Dynamic Prop balancing could not be done because rear motor mounts were degraded (decided to replace all motor mounts)
3. Sent my entire instrument cluster out to be refurbished (Fuel gauges were unreliable or didn't work), found out also after that, my fuel senders in the tank were not working properly, and send those out for refurbishing).
4. Front Throttle Body and fuel pump had to be refurbish, sent those out.
5. Had foul weather window rebuilt and replace all window and door gaskets. During cold days the heater couldn't keep up with the cold air flowing in.
6. Replace valve cover gaskets to slow down all the oil leaks I've been getting.
This is a sample of what I've had to deal with on my aircraft and it is a lot. Each repair is expensive, but I'm making headway. I know even if I was fed up and sold the aircraft I would not get the money I've put in out of it. Again, I consider it a passion that would not make sense to anyone else but aircraft owners.
After these last set of repair, my aircraft may not look nice, but I believe I can trust it to fly me cross country with some reliability. I'm also adding a few other gadgets I would just like to have and then I will be happy with my aircraft for awhile. There are other items like Xerion engine instruments and Aspen avionics and autopilot I would like to add, but that is far in the future.
The reason for this long story is to let you know that your situation is not unusual. Aircraft are always going to require fixes and maintenance. It's always going to be expensive to fix, but I think it is manageable. I'm currently frustrated also with my aircraft, but I'm starting to see light at the end of the tunnel.
Hope this helps,
Karl
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