Here's a pic from today, I've been stripping away!

Wow it's looking better all the time. The old paint job look like somebody used a the paint brush for a house on it

Boy if I could talk your mom into letting me come down I'd love to come down and work on that thing with you for a while.

Do it! I could use some help. Tell mom you owe me from 10 years ago when we did the same thing with the 120.

Wow! Right on Rob, that's a lot of elbow grease. Looking great.

Looking great!

Doing a great job Rob. I sure do know what your going thru and know it aint as easy as so many claim. Keep up the good work. It will be 2015 before you know it!

Almost there! Keep at it!

I've always wanted to re-paint the 170 in the original 1953 paint scheme with red trim on polished aluminum. While stripping the 170 I've noticed the paint lines from the original scheme are still visible, perfect! This will make laying the lines a lot easier.

1953 170B paint scheme

George Horn is going to give you a backrub if you pull that one off.

Looking good, man! That paint job was applied by somebody who was 3 sheets to the wind.

Zzz wrote:George Horn is going to give you a backrub if you pull that one off.

Haha I hope not, that's someone else's plane by the way. You know George wouldn't roll with 8.50s.... That's not original.

Ill be following with great interest. BTW tha 5 pound gyro that you referred to, I repaired about 1983, I'm amazed it still works!!

Today at the hangar I weighed all the crap I've taken out of the plane that won't be going back in. Grand total so far is 66lbs! The old gyros and vacuum system were 14.6lbs alone. I'll save another 15lbs by tossing the rear bench seat and installing the Atlee Dodge folding jump seats. At the beginning of all this the 170 was about 1400lbs empty, on bushwheels and with the rear seat in. After I'm all done I'm hoping to be at 1300lbs on bushwheels. I'll do a separate W&B for the 8.00s and small tailwheel which will save me an additional 30lbs.

robw56 wrote:I'll save another 15lbs by tossing the rear bench seat and installing the Atlee Dodge folding jump seats.

Hopefully you're not falling into the same wishful-thinking trap that I did. I called Atlee and asked how much their jumpseats weighed. I was quoted "six pounds per side". Sweet, right? Well when I got them, I realized that he wasn't including the mounting rails and other hardware. Net weight for the pair installed is about 25 lbs, not including upholstery. So, pretty much a draw with my stock 170B rear bench seat. Gains are all in utility, unfortunately not in weight.
-DP

He'll be keeping the right jumpseat out but of course he will be replacing that with an 80 pound dog

looking real good on the project rob....fwiw, i gave my jump seats away! dont waste the $... l simply put the rear seat back in when i need to take some pax...only takes 10 min with 3 bolts and such...the jump seats really arent much...

denalipilot wrote:

robw56 wrote:I'll save another 15lbs by tossing the rear bench seat and installing the Atlee Dodge folding jump seats.

Hopefully you're not falling into the same wishful-thinking trap that I did. I called Atlee and asked how much their jumpseats weighed. I was quoted "six pounds per side". Sweet, right? Well when I got them, I realized that he wasn't including the mounting rails and other hardware. Net weight for the pair installed is about 25 lbs, not including upholstery. So, pretty much a draw with my stock 170B rear bench seat. Gains are all in utility, unfortunately not in weight.
-DP

When I removed my factory bench out of the 170 it weighed in at a whopping 41 lbs. this is of course crazy heavy, but I'd take my Atlees over the bench any day. Are you sure your math is correct? Are you suggesting the rails and mounting hardware weigh 13 lbs over the seats?? I should have weighed the components, but I did that install and find it very hard to believe everything all in weighs 25. But then again, nothing surprises me anymore.

denalipilot wrote:

robw56 wrote:I'll save another 15lbs by tossing the rear bench seat and installing the Atlee Dodge folding jump seats.

Hopefully you're not falling into the same wishful-thinking trap that I did. I called Atlee and asked how much their jumpseats weighed. I was quoted "six pounds per side". Sweet, right? Well when I got them, I realized that he wasn't including the mounting rails and other hardware. Net weight for the pair installed is about 25 lbs, not including upholstery. So, pretty much a draw with my stock 170B rear bench seat. Gains are all in utility, unfortunately not in weight.
-DP

That's too bad. Their website says "6.8lbs each unupholstered" and "saves approximately 14lbs". Either way I need the extra space I'll get with only having one side installed. Gotta put that 80lb dog somewhere .

bigrenna wrote:

denalipilot wrote:

robw56 wrote:I'll save another 15lbs by tossing the rear bench seat and installing the Atlee Dodge folding jump seats.

Hopefully you're not falling into the same wishful-thinking trap that I did. I called Atlee and asked how much their jumpseats weighed. I was quoted "six pounds per side". Sweet, right? Well when I got them, I realized that he wasn't including the mounting rails and other hardware. Net weight for the pair installed is about 25 lbs, not including upholstery. So, pretty much a draw with my stock 170B rear bench seat. Gains are all in utility, unfortunately not in weight.
-DP

When I removed my factory bench out of the 170 it weighed in at a whopping 41 lbs. this is of course crazy heavy, but I'd take my Atlees over the bench any day. Are you sure your math is correct? Are you suggesting the rails and mounting hardware weigh 13 lbs over the seats?? I should have weighed the components, but I did that install and find it very hard to believe everything all in weighs 25. But then again, nothing surprises me anymore.

Bigrenna,
If I'm lying about anything, it's that my "stock" seat may not have been original to my 170B. But it is some edition of a factory-original Cessna second-row seat. I know for a fact that it weighs in at 26 lbs. The Atlees come out to very close to 25 lbs, plus upholstery, so it's virtually a draw. I did weigh every component from the Atlee kit, using a 10 lb postal scale. I wrote the individual weights down on the Atlee shipping box, which is currently with my IA getting installed. The attachment rails and doublers are surprisingly heavy. The seats themselves were six pounds apiece, just as they guy quoted me.

jomac wrote:....fwiw, i gave my jump seats away! dont waste the $... l simply put the rear seat back in when i need to take some pax...only takes 10 min with 3 bolts and such...the jump seats really arent much...

Yeah, I ran that way for years. I had nut plates in my floor that made it especially easy. The downside was that the seat didn't stow worth a damn if you wanted to haul it from point A to point B along with other cargo. And it doesn't give the option of running just one rear seat. I'm anticipating having a nice 3-seater with room for skis down the extended baggage. And technically, a seat removal/ installation requires an A&P sign-off if I'm not mistaken.

-DP

Hmmmmm....just removed a set of dodge seats for the Skalywagon from a friends wrecked 180. I'd be shocked if the rails and other components weighed more than 3-5 pounds, not counting seat belts or rivets but.......will weigh stock bench vs Dodge with all hardware when I get back to em in a week or so.

Great work Rob, keep it up and thanks for the photos and updates!!!