Well, i got a deal on a container to ship the 140 that I cant turn down, and an A&P in California that will help me re-hang the wings for the great price of beer and pizza, so it looks like im sending her east! From there I will be flying across to Massachusetts where the 140 and myself will be home. Until i containerize the plane and ship it in September, I will be making numerous upgrades. Inspired by others on this site, I have gone ahead and pulled the headliner, carpet, side padding, and all of the foam and fiberglass insulation. It was an easy 15 lbs to lose, and there will be more coming out when i remove the large heavy speaker from the ceiling tomorrow. Next on the chop block will be the vacuum system (getting replaced by a single G5) and removing the ADF and associated antenna. The fuselage will stay polished, and the red stripe will be repainted. The wings will be getting the Oratex treatment as soon as funds become available. The engine will be getting a few small leaks addressed in preparation for my flight across the country. Pictures to follow soon!

Side note: I know this topic has been beaten up a bit, but what is the best way to remove that awful brown interior adhesive used by Cessna? MEK sounds like itll do the job with a plastic scraper, but I was hoping to avoid the fumes....

After just a little while, they make you happy. Alternate cleaning and other things outside the cockpit. Shower and change cloths before going home.

Sounds like the beginning of a great adventure.

MEK or other smelly chemicals is the only luck I've had. You might try a heat gun to soften it.
I had good luck using paint stripper applied thinly. it turns it to a sticky mess that scoops off with a squeegee and then an MEK soaked rag to wipe things up. Not that paint stripper is any less noxious than MEK tho.
Lacquer thinner instead of MEK might work.

If you're putting some kind of panel back in, you might want to just leave it alone for now. The weight savings isn't huge.

Got the first bits of the infamous cessna brown glue off today. Had great success with paint stripper in a spray bottle. Once it soaked for a few minutes, came off really easily with a plastic scraper and scotchbrite pads. There was a tiny bit of surface corrosion found, but with some light wet sanding, that will be easy to get rid of. The lighting in the last picture makes the corrosion look worse than it is. All of the surface corrosion is smooth to the touch and has no pitting. While investigating what work would be required in the panel, i found a ton of wires left over from old avionics that arent even installed anymore, so that was easy weight to get rid of. The ADF is easy to remove, so that will be going away tomorrow morning.

Looking good! I'm going through the same process right now with no end in sight. In regards to chemicals and the black goo, I have had great success with Mineral Spirits and Scotch-bright Red (7447). Just be careful about cleaning the remains, its not stuff you want in your airplane's belly!

Do you have any info on your ELT mount??

Thanks! luckily for me, I have a light at the end of the tunnel already (today was around 1/5 of the goo. not much surface area inside a 140 ) Ill be giving the interior an extremely thorough bath with soap, water, and brushes to get rid of 72 years of gunk and crap, so there wont be any stripper left over. Once clean, its going to get primed, and debating on if i want to paint it flat black or keep the primer look....

As far as the ELT mount is concerned, I dont really have any info on it. It came that way and has been passing annuals since the early 80's like that. From what i was able to gather looking at it, its a simple bracket bolted to the inside of the fuselage behind the baggage compartment and the ELT itself has a quick release strap holding it down. The logs dont contain anything useful regarding the install

For most adhesives xylene does the trick. it doesn't evaporate as fast as MEK.

A bit of encouragement. It will be worth it.

If I thought my 170 could have looked like that I would have kept it.

I've used a Hotsie heated pressure washer to clean the grime out. Just run forced air from a floor dryer or portable air conditioner for 24-48 hours to get it completely dry. And you'll probably have to crawl into the tailcone and clean out the fuselage drains.

I bought a small Dupray steam cleaner from Costco for detail work. It puts out about 40psi and only holds about a gallon of water, so it's a little small for doing a whole plane, but it works great for cleaning in tight spaces. I used it to detail my engine. Using steam under a little pressure and a little scrubbing, you can really cut back on the chemicals. Water is a great solvent, even better hot.

What kind of paint stripper are you using?

A1Skinner wrote:What kind of paint stripper are you using?

Nothing special, some generic brand stuff from home depot. seems to do the job ok

jlacharite wrote:

A1Skinner wrote:What kind of paint stripper are you using?

Nothing special, some generic brand stuff from home depot. seems to do the job ok

Thanks. I'll be tackling a 206 soon and looking for a way to do it without as many fumes...

A1Skinner wrote:

jlacharite wrote:

A1Skinner wrote:What kind of paint stripper are you using?

Nothing special, some generic brand stuff from home depot. seems to do the job ok

Thanks. I'll be tackling a 206 soon and looking for a way to do it without as many fumes...

fumes werent bad at all. i had a respirator on anyways to be safe, but it probably wasnt needed. It helps to transfer the stripper into a spray bottle to make application easier. good luck!

Go on-line and buy a quart of Soy-Gel paint stripper. No smell, no chemical burns, no haz-mat shipping.
Been using it on most everything and works great.
Dave

Be careful to not get the stripper or anything in the seams as it will promote corrosion down the road.
Thinly applied, it makes a sticky goo that is easy to remove but too much stripper and it runs into seams.

Same for the pressure washer, you can push a lot of debris into the seams with that.

The ADF and the VOR/LOC indicator both went away today, so there goes around 10 more lbs! And now i got a nifty new spot to put a glove box and a new hole to put the G5 into

Interested in the G5 install. Want to do that also. Information on the paperwork and problems and or solutions.
Thanks
ML. Cessna 140 1946

The g5 is covered by STC, so the paperwork is straightforward. The install itself is also pretty easy. WAAS antenna for the gps source, positive and ground leads for power, and hook up the pitot and static and you're good to go! I might try and figure out how to wire it to my nav radio to get horizontal and vertical guidance, but I don't know if it'll work with a non-garmin nav radio.

meachamlake wrote:Interested in the G5 install. Want to do that also. Information on the paperwork and problems and or solutions.
Thanks ML. Cessna 140 1946

There's been numerous threads on G5's and other EFD's here on BCP, you might wanna google them up.
Here's one:

https://backcountrypilot.org/forum/elec ... 2?start=20

and here's a link to the referenced FAA policy statement:

http://rgl.faa.gov/Regulatory_and_Guida ... -23-08.pdf

I'm interested in your plan on using Oratex on your certified aircraft. Have you talked to your FSDO about a field approval yet? Hopefully the STC will be forthcoming. Have you noticed if the 6000 is less transparent than the 600? I know you wouldn't need 6000 for the weight on a 140, but I don't like the see-through look that I've seen on other planes, at least not on a 140. I am going to soon ask my dad if I can borrow his 140 that I learned to fly in and restore it.