Finally was able to get a start on this project and so far so good, got the engine mount bolted on today and the cabin heat rotated. I am also swapping the old rubber mounts to firewall with new solid bushing kit. Was nervous going into it but everything bolted up to the old 56 airframe just fine.

Now I have the engine cradled back up and bolts in, but still need to adjust the lord mounts into final position... Tomorrow

I have a set of the solid firewall mounts for my 180, they came along with the airplane when I bought it. Is it a pretty straight-forward replacement for the rubber mounts? Will I need new longer / shorter bolts, or anything else besides the bushings? And what about the paperwork-- just a logbook entry with the part numbers (which I don't have)?

The replacement is straight forward. Tough to reach the nuts on the top bolts from the inside but doable.

Without seeing your bushings its tough To say if the original bolts work. I got new bolts but that was because of the new engine mount. In addition to the bushing you would need some washers and spacers too.... Give Jim a call at seaplanes west, if nothing else, his solid bushing kit is only $275

Today I got the engine bolts torqued and lord mounts bolted in place. (Each lord mount has two AN4 bolts that hold them
From rotating)

Also got a few wires reinstalled and got the pilot side floor board and seat reinstalled.

Still need to reinstall the Carb and the new Acorn Exhaust, then Re wire all the probes. Sorry no good pics but making some headway.

Uninterrupted this would probably only be a two-day two-man job.

Got the carb back on and the exhaust bolted up. New carb heat collector muff installed and EGT/CHT wiring hooked back up. Change out the gascolator tomorrow and should be ready to fire it up.

Wrapped it up today, if it weren't for the Blizzard outside I would have fired it up but that will have to wait for another day.

Here are some photos of the cowl. You'll see here on the 56 182 that my new exhaust now exits out the co pilot side as opposed to the pilot side as delivered from the factory, should help keep the plane cleaner.

My carb heat is now drawing off a shroud on the exhaust collector, as it should, as opposed to the stock configuration which was coming through the the cowl and through the muffler shroud. Glad to get these updates done.

Now she just needs big tires[emoji12]

Looks great. I have the Acorn Exhaust on my 180 and it works great. I think you'll like it

Hot Rod, when my A and P friend put the solids in my 54 he used the same bolts. I was gone but he didn't disconnect fuel lines or throttle cable etc either.

I have some exhaust questions. I have the same plane and installed the same exhaust but did some things different.
1. I used a late model 180 baffle with the heater air pickup below the oil cooler. The cowl pretty much covers it and it gets very little flow. It sucks. Did you put a fitting on the cowl for the air Inlet? If so where did ya get it?
2. I didn't want to cut another exhaust hole so I used the old. It puts the new style muffler shroud seam In a bad spot making is a bitch to get the shroud on.
Nice looking install. I think I need to switch mine around... Let me know how much heater air flow you get with that setup.

Question

I can't remember.
Are they painted or powder coated?
Painted I hope!

Wannabe

wannabe wrote:Question

I can't remember.
Are they painted or powder coated?
Painted I hope!

Wannabe

Engine mount appeared to be powder coated.

PAMR MX wrote:I have some exhaust questions. I have the same plane and installed the same exhaust but did some things different.
1. I used a late model 180 baffle with the heater air pickup below the oil cooler. The cowl pretty much covers it and it gets very little flow. It sucks. Did you put a fitting on the cowl for the air Inlet? If so where did ya get it?

2. I didn't want to cut another exhaust hole so I used the old. It puts the new style muffler shroud seam In a bad spot making is a bitch to get the shroud on.
Nice looking install. I think I need to switch mine around... Let me know how much heater air flow you get with that setup.

My 56 pulled the cabin heat and carb heat both off the bottom cowl. I patched the carb heat and switched it to pull from an exhaust shroud inside the cowl like newer models. I left the cabin heat as is. Will report out on heat. I don't suspect it's any better, as am tryin to heat air at 130 mph. Last I flew was 45 degrees and it was adequate. It's about 10 degrees out now so hopefully I can fly today. I do have the old fitting from the carb heat intake if you want it.

I built an RV-9A previously so the patches and new hole wasn't a big deal, maybe 2-3 hours in total

Original style 1956 182 cowl and muffler cabin and carb heat intakes:

Your little fiberglass scat hose flanges on the cowl are not stock. Pretty cool mod tho.
The original setup had no flanges. Here is the stock shroud.

Good to know! The flanges do make for good seal to the scat hose

?

Engine mount alone is $4000, there is some mod work required moving heat valve and whatnot. Mount us part of the seaplane kit for 182s from Seaplanes West, just happens to be a very robust mount that can render a smooth engine even smoother, check out the website.

http://www.seaplaneswest.com/enginemounts.html

mountainwagon wrote:Nice job on your mod .Reading through your thread on this mod I wondered if something was wrong or damaged on the stock engine mount. I have seen this done on 180/185 for float operation and some say the price is a lot like 10K. I have two questions to ask that I seem not to be able to figure out. What did something like this cost ? What was the mod for?

This plane is new to me and I made the upgrade for a number of reasons;

1. primarily to smooth out the operation at cruise speed and increase the longevity of this old airframe and new avionics. This bird had a pretty good half rate vibration at cruise speed. (At least quite a bit noticeable over my RV-9A with composite prop). Also evident by a good number of smoking rivets on the cowl.

2. Allowed me to intimately learn the firewall forward of a 182 which I think will help with future maintenance and identifying issues.

3. Wanted to implement the carb heat update, copilot side exhaust outlet and cabin heat mod.

4. The plane has been substantially restored and this is sort of the icing on the cake.

5. Only has 125 SMOH but the next overhaul will get ponked out at the next overhaul

6. Last but not least, my five year plan was to install amphibs, however I learned partially through the upgrade that their is no STC for Amphibs on a 56, only straight floats... So hopefully their is one in the future!

I didn't learn until after buying the engine mount that I also needed a new exhaust system... So that was a surprise.

The mount was $4k, I think the exhaust was $2500, cabin heat box was $200 from wentworth. Some other misc. BS. I did most of the work but still got a $1000 bill for the logbooks, 337s, W&B and a day or so worth of help.

I'd think it increased the value a bit. Hope
It smoothed it out! Will
Report back asap!

Upgrades are good. I talked to 185 guys who say they gained speed, something to do with offset. Interested to here your flight report on vibration and speed.

mountainwagon wrote:Upgrades are good. I talked to 185 guys who say they gained speed, something to do with offset. Interested to here your flight report on vibration and speed.

That is a good point there with the thrust line alignment... I failed to make that specific before/after comparison but looking through some photos on my phone it appears that the spinner is indeed higher now and aligned with the top of cowl better.

If you zoom in on these photos I think it's noticeable:

Before


After

I installed a seaplanes west mount on my 180 k 2 months ago with o520 with 84 in hartzell prop . Engine sits up higher .new exhaust could have used the longer manifolds as last of clearances between air box and muffler . Runs real smooth at all rpm. Gained about 3 to 4 kts . Have 9 hrs on it and it's cold here .needs more testing