Still some noodling about before they go on permanently, but I got everything unmasked and test fit today. The yellow/beige is really really bothering me now… might just have to start stripping sooner than I had planned…
Aside from the pain of sourcing and buying a 185 vertical stab, the Kenmore Air Gross Weight increase was really easy to install. During my research, all I could find out about the install was that you just needed to “install a doubler.” Where did it go? How did it work?
Well… here it is. Its a simple doubler that goes in the center of the horizontal stab between the leading edge. You remove a nutplate, cleco the doubler, drill out the holes, buck it in place, then reinstall the nutplate. Pretty simple operation lets you go (legally) from 2800 (in my case) to 3190lbs.
Now off to paint!
Well the panel is in and finished. Totally pumped. Actually most of the big projects inside are done, and I’m ready to fire her up which feels good… but I guess I didn’t want to fee that good cuz I went ahead and pulled the horiz/vertical stabs.
The theme of this past year has been “while I’m here…” and since it made sense to do it now, I drove up to Canada to Skywagon City and grabbed a C185 vertical stab from Peter. They are getting harder and harder to find so I figured I had better get it done now. Peter only had one “3” bolt (earlier stab to fit my 66 H model) so I couldn’t be choosy. He did have a couple of rudders to choose from, but when we laid them out on the shop floor, I grabbed the one that went with the stab. They both are in pretty decent shape, so I’m happy. Part of the deal was to swap out my stab/rudder as a core. It was sort of sad to leave the orig stab up there, but I’m sure it will be put to good use down the line.
I haven’t weighed her yet, but I’m hopping sub-1700. With the new 3190 GW, I should have over 1500lbs of useful.
The Kenmore Air STC is super easy to install and with a 400 lb increase in GW, who can argue? Spent the last three days stripping the stab and rudder. (cant believe I am back to stripping)
Anyway, she’s still moving forward…
