Hi Guys,
I have been planning on changing the instrument panel in my cub since I bought it about a year ago. I got the money saved up and bought all of the gauges and got them overhauled. I bought a panel from Clyde Smith. I removed all of the gauges and the panel today and checked to see that the panel would fit correctly. I found that the guy who last rebuild the aircraft about 5 years ago decided to cut the boot cowl to make his homemade instrument panel fit.....damn.
I decided the best way to fix this problem is to make an overlay out of .025 aluminum to attach and put over the existing boot cowl. I used a few pieces of poster board and made a pretty good template. I cut out the aluminum and with some final adjusting, I think it is going to come out pretty good. Tomorrow I have to decide how to attach this overlay to the existing boot cowl. I don't think that I want to rivet it on for two reasons. I don't have much access under the boot cowl without removing the fuel tank. And, I would then have to paint the new panel after it is attached to the airplane. This is kind of a pain with a finished aircraft. I'm thinking about just adding a few screws with a washer and nylon locking nuts underneath. We'll see. Anyone else ever run into this problem?
I attached some pics so you can see before and after. I still have the white plastic covering on the aluminum. I'm getting rid of the airspeed indicator that is in the picture. I've got an original one on the way.
I have been planning on changing the instrument panel in my cub since I bought it about a year ago. I got the money saved up and bought all of the gauges and got them overhauled. I bought a panel from Clyde Smith. I removed all of the gauges and the panel today and checked to see that the panel would fit correctly. I found that the guy who last rebuild the aircraft about 5 years ago decided to cut the boot cowl to make his homemade instrument panel fit.....damn.
I decided the best way to fix this problem is to make an overlay out of .025 aluminum to attach and put over the existing boot cowl. I used a few pieces of poster board and made a pretty good template. I cut out the aluminum and with some final adjusting, I think it is going to come out pretty good. Tomorrow I have to decide how to attach this overlay to the existing boot cowl. I don't think that I want to rivet it on for two reasons. I don't have much access under the boot cowl without removing the fuel tank. And, I would then have to paint the new panel after it is attached to the airplane. This is kind of a pain with a finished aircraft. I'm thinking about just adding a few screws with a washer and nylon locking nuts underneath. We'll see. Anyone else ever run into this problem?
I attached some pics so you can see before and after. I still have the white plastic covering on the aluminum. I'm getting rid of the airspeed indicator that is in the picture. I've got an original one on the way.
