‘67 Citabria 7GCAA restoration/milman spar conversation

[JimParker256]

Looking good! Glad you didn't go with all-black seats. Those get so hot!

 

[Bartman]

That is incredible that you got it all done so quickly and in a one car garage!!!

It looks great, thanks for sharing the photos, and good luck in completing the work.

 

[Clifford Daly]

Looking good! Glad you didn't go with all-black seats. Those get so hot!

I’ve learned my lesson with black... my truck is black on black and the heat waves in the summer when you open the door will melt your eyeballs haha

 

[Clifford Daly]

That is incredible that you got it all done so quickly and in a one car garage!!!

It looks great, thanks for sharing the photos, and good luck in completing the work.

I have definitely tested the minimum size space to do a wing.... 18 by 13 foot garage with an 8 foot ceiling. When I flip the wing it clears the ceiling by about 4 inches! It’s definitely a luxury though traveling a 10 second walk to work on the plane. My hangar is 45 minutes away!

 

[Clifford Daly]

Just some more updates on the project! Wings are both covered and in silver, just awaiting some color. Cowlings were all brought down to nothing and primed. Ailerons have been in the house as a project to do when i feel like staying inside. Finally, the fuselage is all painted and going back together now. Interior install is going slower than expected but looking good. I’ll post some more detailed pictures of the process when it’s all done.

If anyone has anything they want more pictures of or more info on please ask! I’m grouping together 250 hours of work and 2 months time into a small group of pictures and info.

Putting it back on the gear was by far my favorite part....

 

[Bartman]

Glad to see you're making progress Cliff! Would you mind showing how you're going to route your fuel tank vent lines? Pedro sent me some photos but I'd like to see what your plans are as well if you don't mind.

 

[MA Cantin]

Wow! Great project! Nice pics! Sure looks like things are coming along well! Looking forward to seeing more!

 

[Clifford Daly]

Glad to see you're making progress Cliff! Would you mind showing how you're going to route your fuel tank vent lines? Pedro sent me some photos but I'd like to see what your plans are as well if you don't mind.

Just saw this now, I will be doing it the original way. I’ll be installing it in the next few weeks so I will post pictures

 

[Clifford Daly]

Some more progress pictures! Last post I had the fuselage all finished, painted and in the sunlight. I have since finished the ailerons, repainted the panel with fresh placards, got the cowlings and doors mostly painted, mid cowling on and all glass installed including windshield, controls are all in silver and ready for color, and finally the wings are white and ready for Stars and Stripes!

 

[MA Cantin]

Looking great!!

 

[Clifford Daly]

Another big update! Wings are finished and on, tail surfaces all finished and ready to install this weekend, and engine is on and hopefully running this weekend!

All the fabric work is officially finished and painted. Everything is compounded and pinstriped (except for the elevators and rudder which I’m waiting until it’s on). All the big stuff is at the hangar.

All that’s left to finish is all the metal work. After the weekend the airplane will look like it’s in for its annual and just missing fairings, inspections covers, and cowlings. Then the paperwork begins!

 

[Clifford Daly]

@Bartman any interest in me posting about my harbor freight upgraded sand blasting cabinet build? Not citabria related but could be helpful to other projects!

 

[Bob Turner]

Looks really good, especially for Poly Tone. One of the Cubs is Poly Tone Cub yellow, and aside from being almost impossible to color match, it is literally impossible to clean/shine. Any hints on compound? I use #7 (used to be DuPont) but it just makes a mess on the Poly Tone.

 

[Bob Turner]

And on the blast cabinet - everybody needs access to a cabinet that works and doesn't leak. The best metal prep for paint, in my opinion, is a fresh bead-blasted surface.

 

[Clifford Daly]

@Bob Turner i used “3M Finesse It II Machine Polish” and a polishing pad that didn’t cut much at all. I was amazed at how well it shined up. It was all painted at 65-70 degrees, room temp paint, and the 65-70 reducer.

I agree on the bead blasted surface being the best to paint on. I picked up a harbor freight cabinet for practically nothing because the person was going to throw it out because it was terrible. My all in budget will be about 250 bucks for a big cabinet that does a professional job. I’ll post the stuff it needed and the steps on here when it’s all done if anyone else wants it!

 

[Bartman]

@Bartman any interest in me posting about my harbor freight upgraded sand blasting cabinet build? Not citabria related but could be helpful to other projects!

Absolutely, want me to ope up a tools and support equipment sub-forum for it? I was going to post photos of the wing rack I made so a new sub-forum might be nice for tools and stuff.
I also have questions about supporting the fuselage when changing out the gear legs or removing them for refinishing.

 

[Clifford Daly]

Absolutely, want me to ope up a tools and support equipment sub-forum for it? I was going to post photos of the wing rack I made so a new sub-forum might be nice for tools and stuff.
I also have questions about supporting the fuselage when changing out the gear legs or removing them for refinishing.

A sub forum for it would be awesome. I would have saved a lot of time if there was forums for citabria wing racks, sand blaster upgrades, the brackets for the landing gear to jack it up, so many little things haha someone even posted a cool little rotisserie they made for the ailerons

 

[Clifford Daly]

The Citabria is together, rigged, and looking complete! I made one of my “finish lists” and it went from about 60 small items down to 5 over the past week.

We put the engine back on, all checked out good with no issues. Finally got to taxi the airplane around a bit and all checked out okay. It’s amazing to think the airplane was COMPLETELY apart so it’s nice when all the electrical stuff works and the radio is clear and you feel at home! I also got the rest of the pinstripe done, put all the decals on, painted the rest of the metal work, and finally, checked checked and rechecked everything!

 

[Clifford Daly]

THE CITABRIA FLIES ONCE AGAIN!

Today, we did the final look over and did the first of many “test flights!” I put it in parentheses because I don’t consider it a test flight since it was already a flying aircraft, which is nice cause it takes the stress off. I did forget how light the controls are after a season of flying a t-6 but it came back to me quick.

I’ve yet to hear of a first flight with NO issues at all so here is my squawk list..... the window latch doesn’t close properly and kept working it’s way loose, somehow the pitot tube was hooked up backwards (I marked everything which blows my mind) but it was a simple fix when I landed, and the final thing was the rigging. It needed a descent amount of left aileron to stay wings level so we did a full turn to tighten the right and a full turn opposite on the left. It helped a lot but needs another full turn on each side. That should get it pretty close to hands off and then we can start doing half turn adjustments to make it dead on. We have it easy with rigging these airplanes... I’ve only ever done biplanes where adjusting one of the 20 cables changes all of them without you wanting to!

All in all, I stopped counting at 1600 hours in the restoration but I’d say it’s close to 1800. I took the plane apart January 13th of 2018 and got it done with a month to spare! I had set a goal of 6 months but my dads words to me are to always double your time line and that’s pretty close to that. A full aircraft restoration, spar conversion, new interior, wiring, painted panel, and a starburst paint scheme, isn’t bad for less than a year. Now to put the plane away and enjoy the holidays not thinking about it!

 

[Bob Turner]

That is beautiful. Nice paint! Congratulations.