[hharney]

Well it has been a busy week with the aircraft re-furb. My interior technician has started the fitting and design process. Back in October I picked out all the materials, colors, and had some ideas on the design but now that we can bring in the panels bare and set them in the fuselage to start the final design phase. It is moving along fine. Interior is being fabricated as I write this so I had better get the interior needs finished before I am in the way of the new upholstery coming in.

We have a new windshield in place and mounted. Still need the center post (would be nice to leave this out but I know I can't) mounted, that will come next week. After hearing all the horror stories of installing these Skymaster windows I was really waiting to see how things would go. As stated in the above message it took about 2 hours to fit and trim the W/S and the next day we installed it. We spent a good 4 - 5 hours getting all the goods fastened back down and a big part of that was clean up. The PRC (ProSeal) is a little tedious to clean up but it's done. I actually spent another 2 or 3 hours the next day doing a final clean up of all the adhesive. It really looks nice. Because of the cold weather the PRC is slow setting so it provides plenty of time to work it. Started on the side windows and had to make some decisions on those. Because the model I have (337C) there are rubber channels that wrap around the fixed outer side windows (all except the entry door window). Re-installing these in the channel on the fuselage was a bugger. The new channel may have been a little thicker but the windows were super tight in place. I will leave them dry with just the rubber channel and after the new paint is applied a bead of ProSeal will be applied to the outside of each window to seal them from the elements. This was confirmed with the paint shop and will be the best option because the aircraft is being painted directly after the interior is completed. I finished the entry door window and all I can say is that it is a good thing this is my aircraft. You couldn't pay me enough to do this for a living. Wow, that was a pain. Anyone changed the glass on one of those lately? It is a split frame (see picture below) and there are like 6 rivets that hold it together. Well I spent 4 hours removing the old window, 4 or 5 hours cleaning up the frame from all the old putty and whatever else Cessna used on it. Then Larry and I worked together installing the new window. That was about another 3 hours after cleaning up the PRC. I still need to do a little more fill and clean on it. Major time for this stuff. Driving back and forth every night is getting the best of me but hanging in there. Today we changed the main gear hoses and the springs. Bought the stuff from Cessna through Yingling. Ouch that stuff is spendy. We will be changing the nose gear hosed too but that won't hold up the interior work so it can wait. The right wing fuel tank bays are all closed back up and the wing support has been moved to the port side for fuel bay inspection before paint. I figured that now is the best time to look. I don't want to have to remove all those screws after the new paint is on. Had five screws on the aux tank that stripped on me while trying to remove them. First time these screws have been exercised since 1968. Get the drill and drill off the heads, remove the panel and then use an easy out on the screws to remove them. Aux tank looks good. I will change the level sending unit gasket and be done. Still have to take off the main fuel bay. Still have engine mounts on the rear, spin on oil filter adaptors, main tires, wing tip strobes, tail strobe, oil leak front engine, but this is all non-hold up the interior stuff. Still it takes time and lots of it. Talk to you soon.