I can understand your concerns, but I honestly feel the seller believes the aircraft to be airworthy, and I feel obligated to tell him he needs to think before he pulls the starter (which, by the way also needs to be replaced).
I tend to credit most people with being more honest, my wife is more critical of people. She feels the seller knew the horrible condition of the aircraft and was trying to pull a fast one. I have seen the aircraft in flight, piloted by the seller. He obviously believed the aircraft fit for the flight. I therefore felt a moral obligation to urge the seller to think of safety first.
Am I emotional about this? Yes. When my wife climbed out of the aircraft I saw a look in her eyes I have not seen since the night I knelt down on one knee to ask for her hand in marriage. I know how much this deal meant to her, and I feel horrible that we do not have the resources to spend $16K for the aircraft, $17K for a major overhaul, who knows how much for a prop (dinged up all over), and everything else.
Spending well over 200% of the vref value of the aircraft to make it safe and legal to me qualifies as a money pit. Considering all of the problems with the engine, flying with it is a gamble with one's life.
If the aircraft had checked out as it was presented to us (airworthy, well-maintained, and with hundreds of hours of service left on the engine), I would already be filling out the rest of the paperwork so my wife and I could complete the sale. Regardless, I am now at a point where we have invested more than 10% of the vref value of this aircraft in determining it is not the aircraft for us, and the seller has been compensated *very well* for his time and the use of the aircraft in flying from its base to my mechanic.
I guess you can say this has been a *very* expensive lesson in what things should make me walk away from an aircraft before investing a dime in a deposit, pre-buy inspection, etc.
Rudy
