It's been a little over a month and a half's worth of work. Sportsmans STOL, Big tire kit, new fiberglass interior, Alaska Sport Seats, extended baggage, Firewall battery kit, new LED's all around, BAS Shoulder harnesses, and fixing the paint... Good lord, I got the bug again! With the 220 Franklin and the STOL kit, it's a fire breather!!!!

Here's what I started with:









During all the work:























It's becoming a labor of love! Here's the crazy part: So far I have shed 100lbs!

Now On to the avionics where I'll gain some of it back!

Looks great!

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Daaang! You made short work of that! Looks awesome! May I ask which LED you went with (especially if one is a pulse light). I'm looking to go that route.

Thanks. Can't wait to see the rest.

CW

Looks excellent, going to be a fun bird to fly [emoji1303]


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Please tell me more about that diamond plate matting you put in!

clippwagon wrote:Daaang! You made short work of that! Looks awesome! May I ask which LED you went with (especially if one is a pulse light). I'm looking to go that route.

Thanks. Can't wait to see the rest.

CW

Yeah, the guys at Aircraft Repair in Glenwood Springs did the Sportsman STOL and the big tire kit. I spent a week up there helping them. Hecter and Jeff are amazing craftsman. I would highly recommend them! I've been working on this thing full days since I bought it.

The position lights are the Aero LED's, the beacon is the Welen, the landing and Taxi lights are Welen and the tail is a Welen 500 series FAA TSO-C96A Class II/TSO-C30c Type III. Love them!

dudestickle wrote:Please tell me more about that diamond plate matting you put in!

I got it from American aircraft products. I used the original carpet as the template and I riveted the aluminum kick plates to it using standard aviation rivets with washers on the back side.

Jim

I got a couple of messages about avionics, so here's what I'm gonna do:

2 Garmin 430's
Garmin 340 Audio panel
Garmin GTX 345 all in one ADSB in/out
Garmin GDL-39-3d
Garmin 796 with an Angerol swivel panel mount
Insight G2 engine analyzer
All new plastic for the panel
all new buttons and knobs
Verneer mixture
Basic clean up and organization

Gonna be a pretty sweet layout when I'm done.

Jim

It looks as good or better in person guys!

Wow! And I thought that my airplane has a lot of mods!

Cary

I'm hoping to get through the avionics quickly. got all of them ordered and on the way. Looking forward to flying!

Jim

Well... I'm back at it in a big way... I told myself: Self, don't mess around with the avionics! So then my personality flaws kicked in and I thought oh I'll just replace a radio... Well a radio tuned into an all new panel and all new avionics. Good lord, I shoulda known...

Before:



Not a bad panel, but it had extra holes from 50 years of pilots with OCD like me. So I decided to plug the holes I didn't need and overlay the entire thing with carbon fiber. Boy, it's a ton of work but it' but I think it's going to turn out pretty good!













As for the instruments, I went with:

- Dual 430GNS WAAS units
- 2 G5's AI and HSI
- G2 Engine Analyzer
- Garmin GTX 345 ADSB in/out
- Garmin 340 audio panel
- Garmin 796
- Garmin GDL39-3D

I'll have the panel done this weekend and the avionics go in starting Monday.

Been pretty fun!

Jim

That's gonna be a sweet panel! The G5s sound awesome. I've thought about remaking my panel (as well as many interior panels) out of CF but I wasn't sure (and still haven't looked into) the legality of completely replacing aluminum panels with CF (?).

In your case, did you prime the Al before laying up the carbon or did you use a layer of glass as a barrier? Just wondering cause I would be concerned about galvanic corrosion!

coloradokevbot wrote:That's gonna be a sweet panel! The G5s sound awesome. I've thought about remaking my panel (as well as many interior panels) out of CF but I wasn't sure (and still haven't looked into) the legality of completely replacing aluminum panels with CF (?).

In your case, did you prime the Al before laying up the carbon or did you use a layer of glass as a barrier? Just wondering cause I would be concerned about galvanic corrosion!

We sealed the Aluminum prior to putting on the epoxy. It wouldn't be legal to make your own panel without field approval or an STC. The main panel is structural so the only choice was to get field approval or just cover it.

It would have been WWAAAAAYYYY easier to make a new one, but gotta follow the rules!

Jim

jaudette wrote:We sealed the Aluminum prior to putting on the epoxy. It wouldn't be legal to make your own panel without field approval or an STC. The main panel is structural so the only choice was to get field approval or just cover it.

It would have been WWAAAAAYYYY easier to make a new one, but gotta follow the rules!

Jim

A lot of parts like this would be easier to start from scratch! What are you planning for the surface finish? Paint on extra epoxy then sand and polish or clearcoat or something else?

Paint on the epoxy. It's hard as woodpecker lips when it cures and looks nice. It doesn't have very good UV properties and will yellow in the sun. But by the time that happens I'll be long gone...

jaudette wrote:Yeah, the guys at Aircraft Repair in Glenwood Springs did the Sportsman STOL and the big tire kit. I spent a week up there helping them. Hecter and Jeff are amazing craftsman. I would highly recommend them! I've been working on this thing full days since I bought it.

Sounds like I need to give them a call when I do my Sportsman kit, I like my guy at FTG for most things but would rather have someone who has done the mod before install mine. Big wheels seem like a straightforward install, but it looks like they can make solid work of the Airglas fork too.

I think I recall you are based at FTG like me, if you're out there sometime I would love to poke my head in there and see your interior, that looks fantastic! The seats and paint are the very last thing I will do, but I'm gathering ideas on materials and such.

Did you rewire the airframe too? That's on my short list to do. I don't trust 60 year old wiring in general, and the resistance builds up on the grounds over time even in a clean plane like mine. I'm going to run all new wire for the hot leads, as well as dedicated ground runs back to a shared ground bus somewhere. Nothing annoys me quite like shoddy electrical systems.

Not surprised at all you have lost 100lbs, it's amazing how much crap comes out when you modernize the airframe. Even with adding some things to my 182, the changes I've made have dropped weight so far. We'll see how it all ends up when I get done. A lot of my planned mods are like yours (firewall battery, extended baggage, STOL, Tonka Truck tires, etc). We need to have some sort of Denver Badass Cessnas fly-in when this is all done.

colopilot wrote:

jaudette wrote:Yeah, the guys at Aircraft Repair in Glenwood Springs did the Sportsman STOL and the big tire kit. I spent a week up there helping them. Hecter and Jeff are amazing craftsman. I would highly recommend them! I've been working on this thing full days since I bought it.

Sounds like I need to give them a call when I do my Sportsman kit, I like my guy at FTG for most things but would rather have someone who has done the mod before install mine. Big wheels seem like a straightforward install, but it looks like they can make solid work of the Airglas fork too.

I think I recall you are based at FTG like me, if you're out there sometime I would love to poke my head in there and see your interior, that looks fantastic! The seats and paint are the very last thing I will do, but I'm gathering ideas on materials and such.

Did you rewire the airframe too? That's on my short list to do. I don't trust 60 year old wiring in general, and the resistance builds up on the grounds over time even in a clean plane like mine. I'm going to run all new wire for the hot leads, as well as dedicated ground runs back to a shared ground bus somewhere. Nothing annoys me quite like shoddy electrical systems.

Not surprised at all you have lost 100lbs, it's amazing how much crap comes out when you modernize the airframe. Even with adding some things to my 182, the changes I've made have dropped weight so far. We'll see how it all ends up when I get done. A lot of my planned mods are like yours (firewall battery, extended baggage, STOL, Tonka Truck tires, etc). We need to have some sort of Denver Badass Cessnas fly-in when this is all done.

PM me when you're going to be out there. I'm out there most days. I'm going to pull every wire. I'm totally up for a fly-in!

I like your floor covering. Who makes that?

Tim