Washers or not?

[Aerco]

Pulling apart my L3B wings, I noticed that there are no washers under bolt heads or nuts on all the main fittings; wing root plates, main strut fittings etc. Was this normal practice? I'm pretty sure these fittings have never been off the airplane, so I assume it was done that way at the factory. Where there are no fittings, they did of course use a flat AN970 washer.

I am about to buy new hardware, and I don't want to end up having to pull out all my new bolts because an IA says I should have washers under there.

Opinions?

[Paul Agaliotis]

Peter,
If there is no reason for the washer I would leave it off. Generally The washer is required under the side that gets turned. Most of the manufacturers eliminate as many parts as they can. So, if a washer under the head is not required it was not used.
Paul

[brink]

This is an old post, I started my maintenance education in the late 50s model aircraft UControl and advanced to Vo tech training in high school.on to Army Aviation, my A&P training, Maybe all this was considered professional, I really don’t know, but I will tell you thru it all, washers paid a very important part of all my training, that may sound pretty stupid,but I recall the do’s and do nots, being inspected, my RII training,( I use washers on every thing of it moves or not), I will admit it’s costly those buggers are getting expensive, I just ordered 40 fabric washers to complete my tail and fuselage cover, paid about 18cents a piece that included shipping thru the mail. Glad I am not ordering for the entire Champ to recover. Not to offend anybody, but trust me washers are very important and need to be used.