Renovating neglected P337

[kragby]

Two years of fixing one thing and then another. Major effort for the past 5 months nearing completion. Interior plastics replaced or repaired and painted. New soundproofing especially rear bulkhead - added insulation -fiberglass and bubble stuff and a new heavy vinyl barrier. Recovered headliner.
Installed JPI engine monitor. No help from JPI but my master mechanic figured it out and refabricated some probe clamps in the exhaust clamps on the front engine passenger side where the short pipes didn;t allow correct spacing- 2" from heads. Had to pull most of interior to get wiring from rear engine through the floor and pressure bulkhead.
Installed Garmin 345 ADS -B transponder - in and out, AHRS. -very nice. Traffic and emergency panel on Samsung 8" tablet S.
Then we found wiring a mess with layers of dead wiring. Now redoing - big job.
Electroluminescent panels and eyebrow lights not working - inverters shot. Cessna wants over 900 for replacement - Spruce has one for 77. Haven't tested it yet but should work.
Transistors in variable controller blown as was controlling potentiometer.
Close to finishing - going to reupholster and then overhaul front engine in a few hundred hours. Then maybe repaint.
Will share info on any of this.
cheers

[JimC]

How long was it from purchase to your first flight?

[kilr4d]

Post pics!!!

[rrolland]

No pics = it didn't happen!

[kragby]

Originally Posted by rrolland

No pics = it didn't happen!

Don't know how to add pix?

[rrolland]

When replying - or starting a thread- scroll to the bottom of the page. You will see a "Manage Attachments" link. It allows you to upload a picture under a variety of formats. Jpeg is the most common.

Note that the maximum size is 1MB. Before uploading the picture, resize it to less than MB. Open the picture in a program such as MS Paint. Choose resize. Save the lower size picture, and upload it.

Looking forward to seeing the P337!

[kragby]

Here are some pictures of the interior. The wiring was a mess and am rewiring some and removing vast amounts of dead wire. The plastic is almost all new and painted very light yellow. It was brittle and cracked. The window rubber seals were probably original and in terrible shape coming apart - all replaced. Cessna actually carries the "molding" at a reasonable price which I cant say for some of their parts - the front wind wing plastic surround Cessna had for $500 or so - The rest came from plane plastics more reasonably.Of course, Cessna probably stocked it for decades,still. Total cost of plastics came to about 2500.
Should finish the wiring in a few more days and the re- upholster the seats.
The inverter for the electroluminesent panels as well as the aftermarket eyebrow lights were both shot and Cessna wants over 900 for the replacement.
Aircraft Spruce has a replacement that seems to work fine for $77. After doing the seats, I'll start saving for front engine overhaul since it has 1300+ hours. There is an emergency oxygen tank but no hook ups came with the plane. Finding the right fittings to fit the receptable turned out to be a challenge but finally located a source. Jad to mold my own seatbelt attachment covers using a simple wood mol

[Flyer770]

On your last pic, looks like a pair of O2 port covers right ahead of the four overhead vents. Or are they something else?

[kilr4d]

Originally Posted by Flyer770

On your last pic, looks like a pair of O2 port covers right ahead of the four overhead vents. Or are they something else?

Yes, those are the ports and a gauge for the 02 tank.

Which is odd since it doesn't seem to have the bulge for an 02 tank?

[rrolland]

Looks like a lot of work! Looking good. Keep us posted on the progress.

[rrolland]

Originally Posted by kilr4d

Yes, those are the ports and a gauge for the 02 tank.

Which is odd since it doesn't seem to have the bulge for an 02 tank?

On the 1973 P337, the bottle is recessed into the ceiling. Here is a picture of my previous P337 (1973) with the ceiling panels off.

[kragby]

Yeah, lots of work but a light at the end of the tunnel. A lot of work over the past couple of years went into replacing leaking hydraulic seals, leaking rocker covers, leaking push rod seals, removing and overhauling the Janitrol heater (took me 15 hours to get it out but could do it a little faster now). Penny cap fuel sensor wiring short ( had to remove top wing panels with about 600 screws to get senors out - turned out to be a short in the cable going into the tank actually in the plastic plug in the cover), cracked cylinder head, nearly all circuit breakers were defective and had to be replaced, short in dome light switch burned the wire because of bad breaker and filled cabin with smoke (a bit scary), and a variety of other issues that developed shortly after getting the plane - like rear cowl flap motor not working, rear tach intermittent, alternator issues, landing gear retraction problem( turned out to be up lock micro switch failure) - but a lot of these issues were due to corroded connections from sitting out I guess.
I was surprised at how much could go wrong from the plane just sitting out for a year maybe combined with really shoddy maintenance (a shop in ND I wouldn't recommend). But man of the posts in this forum have been very helpful and much appreciated.

[rrolland]

Looking forward to hearing about the first flight post-renovation. You are doing a lot of good work....