Looks good!!

Way to knock this out Allen, you're making great progress.

Nice work. What did you use for primer? Hvlp or rattle can? MEK for the black goo or something different?

Thanks.

Frank

Yeah man... your cranking!

Nice, Allen!

What material did you use on the firewall? Looks so much nicer than the old blanket I have.

Thanks! I'm about to head down to the airport to put up some more selkirk rubber foam. Can't wait to fly it all insulated. I flew it without any insulation over the weekend and it's pretty noisy.

Frank - I'll have to go look at the primer, but it's a self etching primer that our IA really likes. We got it to spray on with the gun, but then got a rattle can or two to get the hard to reach places. So far it seems to work pretty well. MEK for the black goop of death and lots of blue shop paper towels. Once the MEK evaporates off that stuff, the black goop sticks to anything it touches. I applied the MEK to the goop with a brush, let it set for a minute, then scraped the wide areas off with a plastic scraper. That seemed to get the majority of it, but the parts in the corners, around the rivets, etc. were a pain in the butt. Lots of patience and time with MEK, a nylon brush and paper towels. We also burned through a lot of those red shop towels on the tougher spots around rivets that just ripped the paper towels to shreds. I kept expecting my trash can to spontaneously combust, but so far so good.


Oregan180 - The firewall is the Selkirk foam again, but in 1/2" thick. I'm hoping it stays up pretty good, I do not want to have to do that again any time soon! It really doesn't get that hot back there on our 170, so it's mostly just for the noise. I also used some 1/2" aluminum spacers from the Aviation department of Home Depot to put the cable that opens and shuts the heater (great on the pilots toes, horrible everywhere else) vent on top of the foam instead of behind. It was previously mounted flush to the firewall. Also, we pulled as many of the screws that came through the firewall and switched them so that the heads were in the cockpit and the pointy ends are on the engine side. That way it was easier to just put the foam over the top of them.

More progress today-

That looks sharp!

Looking awesome! Can't wait to see it!

All the Selkirk foam rubber is finally in! Well, almost all of it. We haven't put it in the extended baggage compartment yet as we haven't ordered the stc (still holding out for the carbon fiber one from Airglass) and still we have to move the elt and the strobe control box out of the way. So far I really like it. The inside feels bigger and is bigger and looks much better. Most of the wires are in their final resting places and wrapped with wire wrap from Aircraft Spruce. Here are a few crummy camera phone shots:







The lovely faux fur covers on the BAS folding seats and high tech bungee cord seat holder will, sadly, be replaced:


I was hoping the new rubber Aerofloor DOT flooring would show up today, but it didn't. I still need to paint a few things - the flap tunnel cover, flap handle, rear headset jacks, etc. The seats still need to be recovered too. I also need to make some pockets to hold things like Greg made now that the pockets that were on the old upholstery are all gone.

Great man... It's really coming together.

If I may suggest some constructive criticism... I would be careful with the treatment of your wiring. It may be ok if you were going to add an interior back in, but I would suggest you really putting some thought into how and where you run your wiring, making sure it is secured frequently. The ELT, rear pax jacks, nav light, vert vor coax etc... can just as easily be run under the floor and never give cause for worry in the cabin. With deconstructed interiors like these, it is really easy for pax, pets, or detritus to catch on a loose wire and snap, there goes the ELT or nav lights.

Regardless, I know how much work this stuff takes, so keep it up. Looking good.

Very good points Greg. The only wires that aren't run through floor are the rear Pax jacks and the tail light. Well, the coax for the antennae go through the wing root but there's no problems there I think. The wire draped behind the seats is the elt remote wire and will go through the floor when we move the tray it sits on. The tail light wire will be easy to move to the floor, the pax jacks stuff is a pain in the butt. Whoever ran it in the first place put it through all sorts of holes in the airframe and must have had stock in the zip tie company. Because we didn't pull the panel I never even thought of running those wires through the floor. That is a really good idea. Did you run the wires up in the covers on the door posts in front of the passenger seats? If we do that we'd have to make sure they can't interfere with the control cables in there.

New Aeroflot dot installed today.

Awesome handmade pattern:


Floor all cut out

Nice! That floor is looking great! I'm trying to resist jumping in the car and driving down there to paint your flap handle and trim wheel while you're sleeping... hehehe

My OCD is kicking in!

CapnMike- do it! I'll leave the paint out for you...

I was hoping to get the flap handle, the trim wheel cover and the headphone jack boxes in the back painted yesterday but ran out of time. There are a few little painting projects left for the interior, as well as some minor fabrication and touch up work. Oh, and the seats still need to be recovered, some wires still need to be re-routed, the extended baggage kit acquired and installed, the elt and strobe control moved... Huh, I was feeling like I was close until I typed this list.

Any updates Allen?

amacbean wrote:

Is that an alternate static source down there by the pilot's lower leg? Wouldn't have had the foggiest about it but my new 180 has something similar that peeks out from under the extreme LH end of the panel.
BTW I saw your 170 doing it's stuff on a rerun of that Walker Texas Ranger episode a couple weeks ago. Yeehaw!

Yep. That looks like alt static... although I would move it up under the lip of the sub-panel. Seems like a wonky way to have it if you are going w/ no kick panels. Save some weight also....

The way that alternate static valve is installed it also serves as a static system drain. It could be used to drain the static system without requiring a static system check like it would if you disconnected and reconnected a fitting. It appears that this airplane does not have the clear plastic in line bottle that latter Cessnas use as moisture traps. I would leave it like it is, good thinking on someones part.

Tim.