I have found a set of floats that I am 99.9% buying next week for my 170 but a mechanic friend of mine has pointed something out that I am not certain of. Is there a way to tell what rigging is on the set? It's a very early set of EDO 2000s if that helps. The plate on the floats is practically illegible, but would it be on there?

Thanks in advance.

Yes. Measure strut lengths, maybe take some pictures. Call EDO. Ask for Eric Johansson -

http://www.kenmoreairharbor.com/edo-floats.html

Give him info, he should be able to tell. Maybe buy some EDO parts from him sometime.

I hate to revive a dead thread, but some rigging for EDO2870/2960 floats supposedly off of a Cessna 182 came up for sale locally. I’m not going to put my 182 on floats anytime soon, but when I do, it’ll start out on EDOs and if I can save some money on the 13k of required rigging, I’ll be super happy.

Because of that, I’m going to go check it out tomorrow. I’m going to look for part numbers, I’m going to measure strut lengths and take some pictures to send to Paul at Acorn. I talked to Eric at EDO, and since they never made floats for a 182, they aren’t able to help much with identifying struts so it’s really up to Paul to figure it out.

I’m wondering if any of the 182 Sealane guys have any advice on what I should look for.


Thanks guys!

Paul is definitely the closest to the source, but you have a more local resource in Park Rapids, MN. Park Rapids Aviation has been an Aerocet dealer longer than Acorn has owned Seaplanes West. They would know.

Pinecone wrote:Paul is definitely the closest to the source, but you have a more local resource in Park Rapids, MN. Park Rapids Aviation has been an Aerocet dealer longer than Acorn has owned Seaplanes West. They would know.

I completely forgot about the good people over at Park Rapids. Jeff’s team does some amazing work on these airplanes and it just blows me away seeing some of them up close. I’ll make sure to give them a ring tomorrow. Thanks for the suggestion!

Numbers on the float barrels won’t hep on struts. They’re exclusive to the float barrels.

Original EDO struts have “ink stamp” numbers printed on them. Then some pilot paints them...

Be aware that there are a fair number of “homemade” struts out there as well. Not necessarily a bad thing, but....

Finally, a LOT of Cessna 180 aft struts on EDO 2870s were cut off one bolt hole at top of strut to provide better takeoff performance. But of course that wouldn’t be legal. But it works.....full disclosure: I have no idea who cut off the struts on my old 180. That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.

MTV

pilotryan wrote:I hate to revive a dead thread, but some rigging for EDO2870/2960 floats supposedly off of a Cessna 182 came up for sale locally. I’m not going to put my 182 on floats anytime soon, but when I do, it’ll start out on EDOs and if I can save some money on the 13k of required rigging, I’ll be super happy.

Because of that, I’m going to go check it out tomorrow. I’m going to look for part numbers, I’m going to measure strut lengths and take some pictures to send to Paul at Acorn. I talked to Eric at EDO, and since they never made floats for a 182, they aren’t able to help much with identifying struts so it’s really up to Paul to figure it out.

I’m wondering if any of the 182 Sealane guys have any advice on what I should look for.


Thanks guys!

Mow some more lawns, save yer money and get a set or Aerocets with the proper rigging. Probably cheaper in the long run and with the way your projects go, you will be float flying sooner. Just my humble opinion.

Kurt

I’ve installed SPW kits on 2 separate 182s at this point. It’s a huge project, and I believe just the kit now is around 20k. I had over 150 hours in just the airframe mods on both of them and once you start digging that deep into any airframe you’re going to find some “while we’re at its”.

You’re in the land of EDO 2870 that aren’t totally blown out like the sets we find on the coast so that’s a bonus.

Paul Gryko is a real nice guy and was invaluable to the process with drawings and getting questions answered. Most of his aluminum float parts are actually made by aerocet.

Having very recently gone down this rabbit hole,
First I discovered that there are 2 STC holders of 182 rigging, SPW and Red Lake. There are some Red Lake rigging sets out there but as far as I can tell they are orphaned.
In a couple of weeks I could measure the struts for comparison. Paul Gryko is very helpful but the SPW website doesn’t have a lot of pictures of specific rigging pieces.

G44 wrote:Mow some more lawns, save yer money and get a set or Aerocets with the proper rigging. Probably cheaper in the long run and with the way your projects go, you will be float flying sooner. Just my humble opinion.

Kurt

That was a good chuckle. If my calculations are correct, I’ll have to mow at least another 3500 lawns. lol.

Anyways, I spent all day on the road to go take a look at what the guy had, and it’s just the struts. I was hoping that there would be a little more to work with and that there would be a once in a lifetime deal to be made, but I’m going to pass on the rigging and the thought of running EDOs.

Paul made some insightful comments about used floats & hidden costs. I really don’t want to end up trying to justify throwing money away on something that’s really not worth it and end up looking like this (again).



I’ll keep my eye on the used Wipline & Aerocets market. In the meantime and I’ll actually listen to the advice that was given earlier to fly around on wheels mostly unmodified for the next while.

Back to mowing lawns until I get my call to report back to the hangar.