I really enjoy watching others work! Its great. I learn a lot from threads like this. Thanks for taking the time to document.

I recently went through a similar prices with a Citabria for somebody. All the plywood fuselage formers were bent into S-shapes. I replaced them with a set from Rainbow Flying Services (I think in Oregon). Great deal at around $300; perfect fit,5 ply Birch I believe.

Same hasslr with removing tailplanes, bad floorboards, rusted rear window ledges etc.

daedaluscan wrote:I really enjoy watching others work! Its great. I learn a lot from threads like this. Thanks for taking the time to document.

Great! Thanks for following along.

Aerco wrote:I recently went through a similar prices with a Citabria for somebody. All the plywood fuselage formers were bent into S-shapes. I replaced them with a set from Rainbow Flying Services (I think in Oregon). Great deal at around $300; perfect fit,5 ply Birch I believe.

Same hasslr with removing tailplanes, bad floorboards, rusted rear window ledges etc.

Nice, we’re using Rainbow to source our stuff too.

Finished painting the rest of the engine baffles



Fuselage has another nice coat of white epoxy on all the tubes.



Control linkages and pulleys etch primed and installed.

Great work! That’s going to be a beautiful airplane!

I’ve just used pull rivets on my baffle-work. I enjoyed watching you do it this way though. I’ve never worked with solid rivets and learned something new there!

When I was working on my RV, I learned early on that that squeezed rivets come out much nicer looking, especially the universal heads. It looks like the rivets in that baffle patch could've all been squeezed? Either way, functional beats beauty everytime!

Thanks for the progress updates! I'm waiting on my welder to finish brekkie I can start reassembly. Sucks being at the mercy of other people....

Looks good. But I do agree that for those little jobs I much prefer to squeeze them.

Yep, I agree with you guys, squeeze them when you can for a consistent and nice looking result.

Unfortunately my absolutely wonderful Main Squeeze from Cleavelend Tool was borrowed by a “friend” who hasn’t bothered to return it so I had no choice.

With my A&P practical exam coming up next month I was more than happy to buck some rivets to get back in the groove. In contrast, you set up the squeezer once and it just effortlessly cranks them out with zero skill (which is nice!).

A few more bits installed yesterday.



Got a bunch of stuff ready for my paint shop to strip and paint.

Gear legs are stripped and etch primed.

A razor blade worked well to get them down to bare metal.









The first piece of wood goes on.



Trial fitting some more wood





This is when it's nice to have the old stuff to reference so you're sure what goes where.



This Port A Cool is AMAZING in this dry heat with summer only days away.

I made the mistake of not keeping track of where the many small pieces of aluminium go on a Tri-Pacer rebuild.

The only thing worse than that is when someone else takes it apart and you have to piece everything together.

The wood from Rainbow was cheaper than ACA, but it isn't as nice. It doesn't have the reinforcements on each bulkhead like the factory stuff, and you have to build the stringers instead of having each part ready to go.

I'll show more later about the difference in bulkhead reinforcement.







Got some goodies back from powdercoat. The pedals came out particularly nice. It's a black satin finish with an industrial grade matte clear for maximum resistance to damage.









I also managed to pop rivet on new baffle seals.









An awl transfers over the rivet positions well.







Lead shot bags help during the tracing



And all done, ready to go back on the engine.

It's looking fantastic! I'm glued.

I love this thread! Thank you Aryana!

Glad to hear that!

It's a lot of work to constantly stop progress and take photos while thinking about what to share, but it's a great record of the rebuild for the aircraft and especially fun if others enjoy watching the process. [emoji1360]

I forgot to post a pic of some of the powercoated controls fitted on the fuselage with new hardware.





Also here is the pile of stringer material that came from Rainbow.



And new wood for the roof.

Aryana wrote:Glad to hear that!

It's a lot of work to constantly stop progress and take photos while thinking about what to share, but it's a great record of the rebuild for the aircraft and especially fun if others enjoy watching the process.

Loving this thread! Thanks for taking time to take the photos!

[emoji1360] Thanks Papa Foxtrot

Took the blankets off the engine and pulled it out to install the rehabbed baffles.

Repairing and refurbishing the existing baffles was a lot of work, but new baffles aren't exactly plug and play either. I have never had a new set fit without some work, so fixing the old stuff was not too bad a deal for me.





I still have to order some new AN3-41A bolts for the oil cooler and a couple AN4-12A bolts for the rear baffle mounts. I had new hardware on hand for everything else.

Almost 100F in the hangar today. Didn't get much done besides mocking up some stringers in place on the bulkhead formers.





This clothing steamer works wonders to bend wood without breaking it.



Here's a ridiculously expensive and time consuming scratch build of a 1/4 scale 170B that I used it on to seamlessly bend balsa sheeting on the fuselage.

Here's a ridiculously expensive and time consuming scratch build of a 1/4 scale 170B that I used it on to seamlessly bend balsa sheeting on the fuselage.

Which I am dying to see flying:)