The International Cessna^® 170 Association

I saw the article in the 170 news by George Horn about repairing the air vents in his B model 170 and tried to remove mine to look at doing the same. Mine don't appear to have the spring loaded balls that keep it in place. In fact they don't come out at all! I looked at the parts manual but didn't see them there (Probably overlooked) though I did see the thermometer. Any one had any experience with these?

Thanks!

James Bryan
N4225V 48 Cessna 170

On mine, I unthreaded the large nut and installed new packing. The tighter the nut, the harder it moves in the barrel.

John

I concur, my 48 airvents did not have the spring-loaded ballbearing, and relied on a ring of velcro loops (not the hooks, but the softer half of velcro) to build up enough friction to stay in place. That works well enough, but I replaced them with an after market product as I liked being able to set them to specific flowrates (the original ones were pretty much off and on).

I also recently added the solar-powered vent fan to keep airflow through the airplane. We'll see how it fares during the California summer (which has just now arrived at last).

Richard

I have the original vents on my ragwing and they work fine. I lined the inside or the female part with felt thats available at a fabric shop. Just glue it in with contact cement and cover the male part with syran wrap and slide it in to assure a that the felt sticks to the female part and not to the male part. Bill k

Thanks for the replies! I have tried to get the male part of the vents out but they don't come out. It is as if there is a stop that needs to be removed but I haven't found it yet. I will look again for the nut though some may say I only need a mirror to find it.

Thanks again!!

As I recall, when I pulled out my wingroot vent tubes, the outer tube (housing) came right out with them. Can't remember if/how I got the tubes outa the housings, or if I just shoved the whole works back into the wing as-is. I should tear into them again & do the felt trick like george described(good job George), the tube does sometimes slide out on it's own, especially if I do a warp-speed fly-by when departing a fly-in or something.

Eric

Nah, If I were you Eric, I'd leave 'em alone and put hash marks on the out side of the cans. You can use that to judge air speed if your ASI fails

If you remove the piece of the interior which the vent protrudes through there are 2 sheet metal screws which can be removed and that allows you to remove the vent and work on it out of the plane. That makes life much easier and the final job will probably be better. Bill K

Well I took the covers off and pulled the vent tubes out. Then I was able to see that there was a plastic/phenolic type ring that was preventing pulling out the vent tube. If you push the vent tube in you can remove the plastic ring and then pull the vent tube out. It's strange that it only seems to be the 48 model that had this arrangement.

Thanks to all who posted on this question!

James