Restoration of L3, N4641V (2042)

[Aerco]

I mentioned this airplane in some other posts. I lowered the airplane down from the rafters in my workshop a few days ago and started doing some actual work on it.
Right now I am stripping down the fuselage and it's going very well. I only had a couple of nuts rusted so tight they would not come off, but everything else is cooperating. about 80% of the wood in the fuselage is reusable. No damage of any kind and I found one small repair (spliced in tube lower last bay) - other than that it's in great shape, so far. Please remind me to only start projects that are 1: complete and 2: from the southwest of the country - there is no terminal corrosion anywhere in this.

[Jerry Jackson]

Peter

I had some tubing to repair on a TC65 and while I had the torch out I elected to install a quick-disconnect airline fitting on a crossmember so I could pressurize the fuselage tubing to aid in finding corrosion damage and cracks. That proved to be wise because I found three cracks that I am sure I would never have found otherwise.

Jerry Jackson
7ECA TC65
8T8

[Paul Agaliotis]

Good to see you starting the project Peter. The next trip to Spruce I'll look you up again. Let me know if I can help. I just picked up a L3-B and will be starting on it in a while.
Paul

[Aerco]

Sure, Paul, drop by anytime. Now that I am a little more familiar with it, it might be interesting to compare to what you have.

Got some hard work ahead of my stripping the frame down, but at least it's the cheap part of the restoration.
One thing I am not happy with is the large number of sheet metal screw driven into the tubing everywhere. I understand that this was wartime and they did not have longevity in mind, but I will try to use other methods and close up as many of these holes as possible to protect the tubing. P-clamps can be used in many places, for example. For the greenhouse glazing however I can't really use any other method, but I'll try to use some kind of sealer under the screws to keep moisture out. I know I am being paranoid - living here in CA corrosion isn't much of a problem, but I want this to be good for another 50 years when I'm done with it.

[n47503]

Peter,
I know this is a very old post, but I have just aquired an L3B which unfortunately is a mess and requires a full restoration. If you are still in the area, I would like to get in touch so I can see some of your progress. I have a slew of questions.

Jeff

[Aerco]

Hi Jeff - I am still in Corona and working on the Aeronca. I have a small shop, about 10 minutes from KAJO. You're most welcome to drop by or shoot me a message. Be glad to help out. I'm no expert on these, but I have learned a lot so far.

[Aerco]

My fuselage is 99% done, covered, painted etc. Just need to make seat cushions and install some instruments. Wrapped it up in plastic sheet and hoisted it under the rafters to make room for wings.

Have the first wing stripped don to the wood, cleaned up and re-varnished. Tomorrow I'll get some new hardware and re-install the metal parts. The only repair was a tiny tear in the plywood at the aileron gap.

Btw - every time I try attach a picture I get:

Sorry, the board attachment quota has been reached.

What's going on?

[Nathan K. Hammond]

Great news! Keep up the good work.

(See the other thread about photo's.)

Nkh

[Aerco]

Pictures : This is the first batch. I am still trying to find my around Flickr (not very user-friendly). Hope somebody finds them useful. Not sure what the limit is, but I'll post more if I can.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/12821499@N ... 479190933/

[Jerry Jackson]

Great pictures! You do good work.

Jerry Jackson
7ECA 65-TC
8T8

[Aerco]

Why, thank you sir!

It has been a good experience so far. Funny how once you do one , doing another would be only half as hard. So if anyone wants an L3 rebuilt....

It has turned out better than I could have hoped for so far. A lot has to do with the fact that it was in such good shape to begin with, though at first glance t did not look like much under the 60-something years worth of dust.

Just stripped down the first wing, cleaned and painted all the metal parts, stripped the spars and doused everything in epoxy varnish and I am reassembling it at the moment. All I had to spend so far was about $ 40 on some paint. Nothing needed replacing or even repair. All the ribs had been re-gusseted with ply prior to being stored away in 1952.

I reached my monthly limit on flickr, so I'll post some more pictures of the wings next month.

[Aerco]

Link to more pictures.

I got fed up with flickr so I moved everything to photobucket.

http://s1301.photobucket.com/user/Aerco ... t=2&page=1