1956 Cessna 182

[Donk]

That little drill looks like it'd be the cat's pajamas for broken exhaust manifold bolts, my 90 degree drill is a tank compared to that.

They're bloody good bits of kit but as Bahco said bloody expensive, Desoutter are the gold standard and you'll be doing well to find them new for less than $1k but can often be found used for less than a couple of hundred (over here at least). They're collet drills so you need a different collet for each drill size and a full set of collets can cost another couple of hundred. But once you've used one it's easy to see why they command the money they do.

 

[aczlan]

That little drill looks like it'd be the cat's pajamas for broken exhaust manifold bolts, my 90 degree drill is a tank compared to that.

Here I was thinking that 1/4" hex drive drill bits in a Dewalt right angle head was nice and now I have something else to look for on the cheap...

Aaron Z

 

[Donk]

Here I was thinking that 1/4" hex drive drill bits in a Dewalt right angle head was nice and now I have something else to look for on the cheap...

Aaron Z

The 360 version is pretty handy too....

 

[Bacho]

I bought another Dotco, Turned out its also worn out. The head can be rebuilt, but then I am $400 into a used drill. Gonna try surplus from the yardstore I think.

Started putting the belly on. Need a helper to progress further.

 

[Donk]

I bought another Dotco, Turned out its also worn out. The head can be rebuilt, but then I am $400 into a used drill. Gonna try surplus from the yardstore I think.

Started putting the belly on. Need a helper to progress further.

Some quality workmanship going on

 

[Clemson13]

I bought another Dotco, Turned out its also worn out. The head can be rebuilt, but then I am $400 into a used drill. Gonna try surplus from the yardstore I think.

Started putting the belly on. Need a helper to progress further.

Give me a shout if you need some help. I'm in gville and am dreaming about building an RV so would love to give you a hand and learn some about building a plane. (Or learn I should just buy one)

 

[Bacho]

Give me a shout if you need some help. I'm in gville and am dreaming about building an RV so would love to give you a hand and learn some about building a plane. (Or learn I should just buy one)

I will, be warned this is A LOT more messing around than the modern RV kits.

Hit a score on Ebay, got a throttle, prop and mixture cable kit NOS for $125! These cables now over $500 each.

 

[Bacho]

The new job is severely limiting shop time doing good to spend one afternoon a week here. I was able to get my wife over to shoot on the belly skin yesterday. She made her first smiling rivet, gave her a stern talking to over that one.

Doing a good job with the sheet-metal is sure frustrating for all of the time spent trying to make it wrap these curves well I’m still getting some fuss near the end of the river lines.

I decided to abandon installing these with sealant where there is similar metal. Given that these parts are prime the corrosion situation should be much much better than factory. I think the EPA types are going to prevent this thing from flying another 75 years anyways.

 

[WaterH]

Yea, I gave up on the sealant along time ago. Sometimes I don’t even have primer. Shhhh.

 

[Bacho]

Still on this bit by bit. The front spar came out for clean up. I was debating this but a popped rivet head sealed the deal.

Luckily, the spar was in pretty good shape. I cleaned up very light corrosion on it and gave it some paint. The roof skin here will get replaced, it wasn’t really necessary, but it lets me clean up several old antenna holes which have no purpose.

The upright they are on the door post has become my issue now. There are some white corrosion inside that don’t currently have a good way to reach with any mechanical device to clean up. I think I’ve settled on soda blasting. This is the best way forward. This picture is old. Most of the crud here was dirt and has since been cleaned up.


Also been stripping paint a little bit at a time. What fun. I’ve been surprised by finding some light corrosion areas under the paint. I think stripping paint off an area will be step one moving forward.

 

[GLTHFJ60]

What are your preferred tools/chemicals for aircraft paint stripping?

 

[Bacho]

What are your preferred tools/chemicals for aircraft paint stripping?

I’m not an expert by any means. I’m using bonderite Turco. It was shelflife expired at my old job. Seems to be doing a pretty good job on this paint. Right now I’m cleaning it up with rags and scrapers although I think I’d like to roll it outside and try and pressure wash the stuff off of it.

I was stuff in it with some sandpaper, which sped up the process though I’ve quit doing that as I’ve scratched some of the skin. Letting the stripper sit on there for an hour, so seems to do 99% of the job.

 

[GLTHFJ60]

I’m not an expert by any means. I’m using bonderite Turco. It was shelflife expired at my old job. Seems to be doing a pretty good job on this paint. Right now I’m cleaning it up with rags and scrapers although I think I’d like to roll it outside and try and pressure wash the stuff off of it.

I was stuff in it with some sandpaper, which sped up the process though I’ve quit doing that as I’ve scratched some of the skin. Letting the stripper sit on there for an hour, so seems to do 99% of the job.

The surface damage is what I was most curious about.

Steel on vehicles is fairly abrasion resistant, so wire wheels on power tools work great, plus paint strippers if needed.

So your focus is on making sure the panels/members aren't scratched at all while removing paint. I suppose that's because everything is as thin as possible on an airplane?

 

[Bacho]

The surface damage is what I was most curious about.

Steel on vehicles is fairly abrasion resistant, so wire wheels on power tools work great, plus paint strippers if needed.

So your focus is on making sure the panels/members aren't scratched at all while removing paint. I suppose that's because everything is as thin as possible on an airplane?

Right, scratches create points of stress concentration and should be removed (blended). There is also very little damage allowed to the top of rivet heads.

Additionally almost everything on the airplane is built of clad aluminum. The aluminum sheet metal has a thin layer of pure aluminum on both sides with an alloy in between. The alloy is much stronger but the pure aluminum is much more corrosion resistant. If it all possible you want that layer of clad to remain intact.

As mentioned earlier I’ve been experimenting with soda blasting. It seems to do a good job of removing paint and like corrosion on the aluminum without causing any removal of base metal. There are some corrosion concerns associated to leaving the soda in the airplane. The part below is scrap but I hit this pretty much as hard as I could with the soda blaster didn’t do much to mark the good aluminum. I have read of some paint shops using this to strip airplanes entirely. I think this is useful in limited areas but it’s somewhat slow and expensive to tackle the whole thing. Well I guess that’s at least from the context of having 5 gallons of free paint stripper that’s pretty good.

 

[GLTHFJ60]

TIL about clad aluminum! Thanks for the info.

 

[cervelorod]

Sutton Salvage in Wasilla is a good place for early 182 parts if you decide not to make your own. Also Skywagon city could give you info on doing a TW conversion. I fly a 57 and maintain 3 other straight tails at my airport. If you are staying steam gauges hit me up, I was looking at the take-off shelf yesterday thinking there's good stuff here, but prob not enough to spend time in listing them and dealing with lookey loo's. Just ordered the final pieces and cut a mock up panel for Dynon SkyView upgrade in mine. While you are that deep, you might look at doing the U control arm, gives you much more flexibility for center stack later on. Excellent work so far!

 

[Bacho]

Sutton Salvage in Wasilla is a good place for early 182 parts if you decide not to make your own. Also Skywagon city could give you info on doing a TW conversion. I fly a 57 and maintain 3 other straight tails at my airport. If you are staying steam gauges hit me up, I was looking at the take-off shelf yesterday thinking there's good stuff here, but prob not enough to spend time in listing them and dealing with lookey loo's. Just ordered the final pieces and cut a mock up panel for Dynon SkyView upgrade in mine. While you are that deep, you might look at doing the U control arm, gives you much more flexibility for center stack later on. Excellent work so far!

Thanks. Coincidently I made an order from Sutton today.

Good thought on the control yoke. I am currently leaning towards a more traditional panel, but thats a ways off still.

Do you have rudder trim? Trying to decide if I should do that as well.

 

[cervelorod]

Thanks. Coincidently I made an order from Sutton today.

Good thought on the control yoke. I am currently leaning towards a more traditional panel, but thats a ways off still.

Do you have rudder trim? Trying to decide if I should do that as well.

I do have rudder trim, but I have never missed it in my other planes. All it does is pull the rudder pedal, and you should have it back to neutral before landing. I'm so short I can barely reach it with shoulder straps on. Lol.

When u get to your panel, let me know, and I can hook ya up. I'm a Garmin/avidyne/EI/Trig dealer and can get pretty much anything.

 

[YJLOPES]

That looks like a fun project!

I've rebuilt a handful of 185s and a 170B. I have a decent inventory of parts and sources for others. If you get hard up for something let me know and maybe I can help you out.

I also make an STC for inspection panels on the fuselage near the horizontal stab if you're in a modifying mood. Look up Aeropod Inc on facebook or instagram for some pics of what we do. My real job is flying, but my side gig is all 180s and 185s. I have an STC for 185 cargo pods as well. We are working on another STC for cooling, but that is a slow process.

Keep up the good work. Holler if you have questions. I've been that deep in a bunch of Cessnas and brought them back to life.

 

[YJLOPES]

Here's a 170B we brought back to life. 80% new skins by the time it was all done. Sold it the day my son was born, I think the only way my dad would have been more mad would have been if I sold the kid.

 

[YJLOPES]

Here it is a few months before I sold it

 

[Bacho]

Nice airplane!

I got my powder coat set-up running. All of the steel brake/rudder parts got coated. Pretty pleased with the results.

The floor skin is out, what a mess below. Have a couple hours into scrubbing it, thinking about just taking it out to pressure wash. All of the orange here is mud wasp nest remains.

One of the fuel lines. I thought replacing this would require floor removal, but now that its out I found a union. I found this early on, probably the first eye-opener as the idea of a possible ferry went.

 

[Jmmorriso]

Was that a compression fitting that slipped its ferrule or a flare that broke?

 

[Bacho]

Was that a compression fitting that slipped its ferrule or a flare that broke?

Its a broken flare. The valve there is the low point of the fuel system. The line coming off to the right appears to have some corrosion inside. Might as well replace all 3.

 

[YJLOPES]

Ping me about the trim system if you want some ideas on improving that. There are some common issues and you're at a point that addressing them is a cakewalk.

 

[Jmmorriso]

Thats pretty wild, is aluminum still the go-to or have plastics or rubber lines taken over like in cars?

 

[Donk]

Thats pretty wild, is aluminum still the go-to or have plastics or rubber lines taken over like in cars?

90% of aircraft hard lines are aluminium tubing. The rest being stainless, titanium or steel. Hoses are usually reinforced rubber or Teflon lined braided stainless.
Instrument hoses are the exception where you'll find some plastics (particularly in GA aircraft)

 

[Bacho]

I was given a handful of these. I would like to order some more but unable to figure out what they are called. Does anyone recognize it? I’m coming up with nothing on Google.

 

[kf4zht]

Thought for sure klingspor had those, but only the larger ones. Its a mop of some kind, but I'm used to the other styles

 

[Bacho]

Thought for sure klingspor had those, but only the larger ones. Its a mop of some kind, but I'm used to the other styles

I guess it’s one of those things you ask for help then a few minutes later find the answer yourself. They are called Crossbuffs.