The International Cessna^® 170 Association

I will be doing some cleaning, stripping, prepping and painting of my aircraft soon. Before I do any of that I have decided to do away with the upper and lower nose cap assemblies as they are full of cracks that have been drilled out and previous repairs that have been done over the years. These are parts 0595000-3 and 0552002-51. Does anyone know if these parts are available on their own or do people generally buy a whole upper and lower cowling? Also if anyone has purchased these parts lately where would be a good place to shop and how much should I expect them to cost?

Alex

The 0552002-51 part is available from Cessna (superceded PN is 0595000-6 ) $ 1,186.55 (EA)
And the 0595000-3 is only $ 621.90 (EA)

Otherwise you will be searching the salvage yards.

Maybe yours can be repaired after all?

Oouch! $1800 is a little more than I was hoping to pay. Guess i'll keep the one I have until I find a good one from salvage. Mine is pretty bad so I really need to do something eventually.

A common repair involves using ordinary coat-hangar wire to reinforce the opening by bending the wire to fit just behind/around the reverse-flared opening, and holding it inplace with JB Weld. This serves to stiffen the part up, preventing future cracks.
If the JB Weld is pressed to fill/penetrate the cracks, then sanded and painted, the repair is virtually impossible to see.

If they're stripped, perhaps you can retain the services of a good TIG welder who is especially good at thin aluminum welding. The cracks and extraneous rivet holes can be filled and then ground, I would think. Some guys are so good they can weld aluminum foil.

I do like George's idea about reinforcing the openings, because they are super flimsy.

It's not my idea, but my favorite sheet-metal guy recommended the technique, and later on I found mine already so reinforced.