We just finished a complete gut, strip and paint redo on our 206 and thought the experience might benefit others. Pics are in the photo gallery under Flyingzebra. We redid everything from firewall back. It was about 500 hard hours and the cuss word count was astonomical. The cost was about $9,000 with only about $700 of that as paid A&P labor. The rest was under the supervision of the guys at Via Jet @ KBVS (Dean, Mike and Spencer are better than the best!). They supplied expertise. The cuss words were strictly my responsibility.
All instruments were disconnected and taped. Radios were removed. All interior paint removal was done by Dremmel tool. It was tedious but effective. All doors, jams and hardware was stripped. The only place remover was used was on the seat frames. Aluminum prep was with PTI acid etch primer from Aircraft Spruce. It worked okay. Next time I'd go with acid and alodine. Between grossly conflicting written info from PTI and just the general nature of the material it was more grief than it was worth. Finish paint was catalyzed acrylic enamel.
After everything was repainted the reassembly began. We used Airtex interior with slightly mixed results. The first round with the wall panels turned out to be for a 205. Getting a timely response from them was a struggle and round two was for a 206 but didn't exactly match the pieces that they didn't replace. At that point time was really getting crunched and so we made do. I'd give them a B+ overall but a C- for customer service. The installation was time consuming and somewhat difficult but also doable with no particular experience but healthy measures of glue, sweat and creativity.
All of the plastic except the pedastal was replaced with Selkirk parts. As they state, the parts are not an automatic fit and do need trimming and grinding but the quality is excellent and their customer service is wonderful. Windows were from Great Lakes Aero, also excellent with price, quality and customer service. The decals were from HigherGraphics.com. Those guys were great too. Top quality, custom work and very easy to work with. Not so easy to install but worth the effort. Check out the pics. Sorry about the long post.

Nice pictures. Looks like lots of work but awesome finished product! And the final cost wasn't bad!

BCP's, as a computer retard, I obviously didn't get my pics attached to this post. Those pics can be found under photo gallery and searched under flyingzebra if you check "owner". I blame these unattachments on my iPad and ignore the obvious connection to my lazy lack of learning. Thanks for looking at my project.

Beautiful job, you should be proud.

Cheers...Rob

NICE end product-plus the satisfaction of doing it yourself! The $$ saved is just a bonus!

Great job,
lc

Wow! I never saw such a deep bubble on the windows. Looks like your whole head could fit in one. Were the two front side windows the only ones to get the "boob" treatment?

Looks like a nice interior. Good job! Bet you can't wait to do that again!

Great Lakes Aero makes 2'', 4'', and 6'' bubble windows to replace the door windows on Cessna 170s through 207s.

Thanks for the positive comments all. The feedback is nice after all the grief. I actually wouldn't mind doing it again. It was a lot of work but, as mentioned, satisfying.
The "boobs" were suggested by a friend. As he mentioned the best part is the extra foot of width, it's a comfortable place to rest your elbows. Looking down is cool too. The downside is there is a bit of distortion and, when taxiing, distance perception is off so you gotta watch those wingtips. We did only use the bubbles on the pilot and copilot windows.
Happy to answer any questions about this project for anybody thinking of giving it a go.
G'day BCP's

Really nice!

Who did your panel? That's the worst part of my airplane, something I'd like to replace one of these days.

Cary

We did the panel. All instruments were removed, everything was dremmel tool stripped and repainted. It's mostly a stock Cessna panel with the plastic removed. Avian Research does make extremely cool custom aluminum panels but you have to want them really bad. They are spendy. Considered that option but went with the fifty bucks worth of paint instead (and ten thousand dollars worth of sweat).

sweat equity and pride of ownership are worth more that just laying out $$ in my book. Great work.

How do you like the bubble windows in flight? Are they easy to look out? I like the idea of them but I think I'm too tall to get my head down low enough to get my head in the bubble (I'm 6'4''). I think my head would hit the top of the door. A little bit of extra elbow and shoulder room would be nice though. Also, did you notice any speed loss with them?

Not sure about the drag. I only have about seven 206 hours in my life as of yesterday. No slower that I noticed anyway. The bubbles best upside is the armrest thing. Looking down is okay too but second to the elbow room. I did notice that it's An additional place to splatter bugs.