Good News, Finally! (ramble)

[Sixracer]

Saturday I spent a few hours working on my 172's brakes. Got the problem on the left side cured with new pads all the way around. Then did some general up keep. Sunday I installed the new, to me, Narco radio(e-bay purchase-- I know...) that replaced my old water logged unit. Seemed to work well just outside the hanger. I then did a fire up, first in 3 mo. and loaded a couple of my buddies up for a test flight. On run up the left mag had way too much drop. I went back and found 2 gas fouled plugs on the lower side. Only had one new plug so it went in and we did the old carb clean and air blower trick to the least fouled plug. Then rotated it into one of the top plug locations. Mag drop was now identical on both left and right. We piled back in and flew about an hour away for a Hamburger run. Then after work today my wife and I flew about 100 miles out to watch our two Grand Daughters play softball. On the way home I tried out the range on the new radio and it was outstanding. Picked up my home VOR at 3500 ft alt about 40 miles out. Then the local tower picked up my trans mission 5X5 at 25 miles out, same altitude. I'm pleased and feel good about the old gal again. Ready for some spring time flying. I'm also please with my X wind landings the last couple of days. Had gusts 15-20 and was up to 10 deg quartering and I nailed them all. Even the ones on Sat with all the "Beef" on board. I guess keeping us "Old Farts" down is still hard to do. BTW: Talk about old guys flying...On Sat I ran into a 77 year old guy restoring a T-33 Jet in his home shop in Jefferson Texas. I have pictures to prove it!! Now if I can figure out how to post them, er get them out of my phone, too.. ARG!

[GAHorn]

....and then...you woke up and found you've been dreaming.???

[Sixracer]

Almost.. The wakeup call came tonight. Slap, slap from you.... LOL!!
Thinking about a headliner, now and some interior work next. Might be nice to redo the dash & Inst. panel, too.
Question for board members:
Would you do windows with the interior or do them when you did paint? What is the best sequence?
yea, I know... More ramble... Er... Dream!! :~)

[Bruce Fenstermacher]

You need to remove some of the interior around the back windows to replace them. You replace them by drilling out some rivets.

If I wasn't flying the plane between events I'd remove the interior, remove the windows, clean and paint the airframe then install the windows and last the interior. This sequence is a bit of a compromise because rivets used to install the window will have to be installed after paint. But the new windows won't be installed to get paint on.

Otherwise remove back panels, remove and replace windows, replace interior, then paint last.