The family is Black Fridaying it today. Great time to work on my 182 project. From what I understand, there are a few nose wheelers floating around in the backcountry, perhaps someday mine will join them.
I've already rebuilt the flaps.

Here are some pictures of my Cowl access door rebuild.

It was used too much when it was new apparently. Cracks on either side of the latches and the doubler that tucks into the top cowl is worn and tired. Cessna uses spot welds like you wouldn't believe. Just drill the center with a #40 drill bit.


Make new parts, put a slight roll in pieces and fabricate external bush doubler to prevent tearing again.


Deburr parts, alodine and proceed to rivet. Whenever possibly, use a pneumatic or hand squeeze. It prevents trauma to the final product. A kinder gentler approach is always much better, but sometimes a good hammering is necessary. Either way is a "riveting experience".

The finished project, new latches installed.

Nice work and nice workmanship.

MTV

Thanks for the write up.

Nice work!

Excellent! Did you use 2024-T3 or another alloy? Thicknesses? How about the complex curve? English wheel or what? That’s definitely on the to do list for my C180.

Are those new locks? If so where did you get them, my springs are broken

Thanks for the positive feedback everyone.

2024T3 is the sheet metal. .032 seems to be a good thickness.

The Door is not actually a compound curve, so it's easily rolled to shape, no English wheel required. If nothing else, bend it around your leg to get the appropriate shape.

Always remember when drilling up a new skin and using the old as a pattern, to lay it completely flat while doing so. Same thing whether it be a curved Door, belly skin, horizontal skins, you name it. It works well to just drill and Cleo it right to a board. On a belly skin that wraps around the side of the aircraft, I will make cardboard templates that match the radius first, before drilling it up, and then roll it to shape after the skin is made, using the previously made templates as a guide. If you have ever drilled something in the curved position and then tried it on the aircraft, you are not likely to repeat that mistake.

The best price on the Hartwell H-5000-2 trigger locks seems to be Wicks Aircraft Supply via Amazon.
For some reason Aircraft Spruce has them marked $no way.
If you look on the back side of the latch, there will be a decimal number on each end. (Example, .032, .032, or .091, .091., etc) These numbers are the depth of the step. It will make sense when you drill it off and measure with your calipers.

Richard

Super looking job. Would you like to build a couple more while you have everything out? Min e are pretty used up. "57 model 180.
Gary

Great work and I appreciate the write up. I love the fact that you alodine the pieces. Well worth the time since you'll never get that level of corrosion protection once it's assembled.

I could also be interested in a single one. Also a '57 180....

-asa

Great info! I'll be trying this out in the near future. Beegles wanted $2K to do this.

Great info! I'll be trying this out in the near future. Beegles wanted $2K to do this.

Looks great!
What's the trick to not dumping rivets with the hand squeezer? Seems that no matter what I do, they dump on me. Not major dump, just not centered nicely. For that reason I always use the gun because I don't dump them with it. Maybe I'm just too picky...

Sent from my SM-G870W using Tapatalk

A1Skinner wrote:Looks great!
What's the trick to not dumping rivets with the hand squeezer? Seems that no matter what I do, they dump on me. Not major dump, just not centered nicely. For that reason I always use the gun because I don't dump them with it. Maybe I'm just too picky...

Sent from my SM-G870W using Tapatalk

Tight hole with the right length rivet, maybe a 1/2 size short, plus lots of practice...

Thanks for the offers on the rebuilds. I can't take on anything at the moment, but who knows what the future will bring. Other than my own airplane project, I'm stuck on the helicopters you see in the background for several months. I may have to do something as a filler, just to keep my sanity. Don't get me wrong, helicopters are magical, its still an aircraft, but what's better than a fixed wing?

As was pointed out, rivet length is very critical. We have the advantage of halving half length rivets which helps a lot. Example 3-3.5, 3-4.5, etc. It's also hard to countersink less than .032 without it enlarging the hole. Anything less,usually gets dimpled. That's why you see a lot of Cessna Wing skin rivets smoking. The skin is only .020 and it's countersunk. The hole ends up being huge, right out of the factory. Also whenever countersinking, don't do it apart, have all the layers together and clecoed up. Cleco's are your friend. It is hard to beat a little pneumatic squeeze, you can get away with a lot more, the rivets turn out very nicely. When sewing up the trailing edge of a flap or aileron for example, it's very difficult to duplicate the job the pneumatic squeeze will do. Unfortunately the cost of such a tool is prohibitive for the little guy or the little guy with aviation needs and we have to do the best we can by hand or as was also mentioned, with a rivet gun.

Did you reuse the original hinge? I seem to remember that the cowl flap hinge and oil door hinges are the same part number for early airplanes. The Macfarlane hinges seem real nice but are not cheap. Not Cessna prices, but certainly not free.

my recollection is that the cowl side of the hinge has a different width then the flap side. Did you trim down a large size or reassemble two different sizes?

A 1/4 inch Husky or other inexpensive Angle Die Grinder from Home Depot or Ebay, with a 4" cutoff wheel, 1/4" Center from Brown Tool is a must have for the do it your selfer.

Cut the head off a 1/4" by 2" fine thread bolt. Run a die down it first if need be, to create a few extra threads. Run a plain nut down, then large washer, then cutoff wheel, then washer, followed by another plain nut.

If one needs to shorten up a leg on one side of a piano hinge, a tool like this makes very short work of it. Throw away your aviation snips and use this for all your sheet metal cutting projects. Very fast, highly accurate. When the wheels wear down, save them for certain applications where you need a smaller radius cutting tool.

Air tools like this need a high volume of air, but it's hard to beat.

Nice work... Great attention to detail!

Nice job, Rich. The joggle on the doubler can be a bit intimidating for those of us that don't have access to the tools you do in the shop. In my case, I used a 1/4" end mill to drill through just the skin at the spot welds which allowed me to reuse the factory doubler while laying out uniform rivet spacing (Cessna had not rhyme or reason to the spot welding they did... looks like a chimp was running the welder!). Saved time and materials. Of course my doublers were in good shape... only the skins were cracked.

Just for the record... Rich and Dusty are wizards with sheet metal and structural repair. He reskinned and reset the washout on my 180 rt. wing to correct a problem some bozo left back in the 1960's. Its better than new.... Pretty sure he put his "best guy on it"