Installing Panels on The FREE Abandoned Airplane

Added: 2026-06-01

[00:00:00]Welcome back to Rebuild Rescue. So, today we're getting right at it because we got some parts to clean that are going to be going back on the 401 Phoenix. Joe, what the heck kind of soap is that?

[00:00:12]>> That's a preaint soap.

[00:00:14]>> Prepaint soap. I think he wants me to wash the dishes or something.

[00:00:18]>> They're probably still in there. Are they still in the sink?

[00:00:21]>> What's that?

[00:00:22]>> The dishes.

[00:00:29]So, while I was out in Texas rescuing another airplane, Joe was back here in the rescue hanger getting some of the stuff prepped so we can keep moving on the 401. And really looks clean.

[00:01:08]A couple spots didn't come up, but uh you know, I hate getting my hands dirty.

[00:01:12]So, >> yeah. Well, now your hands are a little cleaner cuz you were washing something.

[00:01:15]So, well, we're going to get these cleaned up. We're going to get these front luggage doors mounted on the 401.

[00:01:21]We're going to figure out the lock setup for it. We have a piece of the tail we have to put on a fairing. We got the emergency escape pod. We got the radar dome cover or the nose of the airplane.

[00:01:34]And we just kind of got to keep piecing this thing together. And then eventually it'll all be done. It's like one brick at a time, one screw at a time, one bead of sweat like Joe's back at a time.

[00:01:48]>> Running down Joe's crack.

[00:01:49]>> No, I said Joe's back, not crack.

[00:01:52]>> Oh, no. It's running down the crack.

[00:01:54]It's too much information.

[00:01:56]>> Crack kills.

[00:01:57]>> You know, Joe, this would have been a lot easier if we would have got it done before letting it get dirty again.

[00:02:01]>> Yeah. We'll remember that for next time.

[00:02:04]>> Yeah. Next. Next restoration of an airplane.

[00:02:09]>> I don't know. I think the next one we should do is a boat.

[00:02:13]>> Big old boat.

[00:02:14]>> A big boat. I think we need to do a cool custom big boat next. This bird poop sticks.

[00:02:21]>> Yeah. You're not going to get it all.

[00:02:23]It's going to have to get sanded. We'll sand that off. Yeah. Really, at the end of the day, we only have a few hundred steps or so until we can send that up for paint. So, we're going to get this emergency door mounted. We're going to check the torque on all the screws.

[00:02:39]After that torque is set, we're going to have to go in with like a plastic razor, take all that extra stuff out because after this thing is painted, we'll put a really nice thin line of Pro Seal around all the windows. It'll give it a really nice clean finish. And between the sealant that we have in there now and that pro seal, these windows, they won't leak at all and they'll look so good.

[00:03:28]need to find some bushings. Just because there was some hardware in it, it doesn't mean it was the right stuff. And most of it's going to be a little corroded. The heads are going to be messed up. And >> if I remember correctly, too, the maintenance manual is a bit of a nightmare when it comes to hardware.

[00:03:44]Little bit of a nightmare. What >> it is. So just going through that stuff takes so much time to pick the right stuff, but we want it right.

[00:04:05]>> I didn't scratch anything.

[00:04:08]>> I didn't hear anything.

[00:04:14]>> Sure sounds like you're scratching things.

[00:04:19]Spigman of your imagination.

[00:04:42]All right. So, that's tight enough. I'm not going to tighten them up all the way because in a day or two or three or maybe a week or two or four or something like that, these are all going to have to come off. In fact, the nose is going to have to come off. This door is going to have to come off. Everything that we install on the airplane, even the rudders and elevators and all kinds of stuff, they're all going to have to come off the 401. But we're going to know they fit and they fit right. And we're also going to get to see it kind of together, which is exciting. And we'll also have all the hardware figured out for reassembly later.

[00:05:17]There we go.

[00:05:20]So, we also have some seals that we're going to add in here. It'll keep this thing completely weathertight, which previously it wasn't.

[00:05:29]>> So, we got the nose cone all fixed up on here. Looks to fit pretty well. I did not tighten all the screws cuz like Jason said, we got to take all this back off anyway. It does have room for a pedo. We have to add that. We do got to put the radar in. We have multiple radar systems sitting around the hanger. And I think the one that came with the 402, I think it was overhauled. So, we're going to install that. Connect it to the 550 Avidine and it'll come up right on that screen. So, active radar all in color.

[00:05:55]Really important if you ask me. But the cool thing about the 400 series, you get two pedos. You get the center one and you get an offset pedo. I saw a crash the other day uh a report and there's questions of whether or not the two different systems in the airplane was connected to one pedo or the two separate ones. You want to keep them separate. So in the 401, one system on the left is going to run off of the main one and the one system on the right is going to run off of that one. You got two heaters in there, you got two pedos, you have dual safety. I think every airplane should have that safety for your pedo because two pedos are better than one.

[00:06:59]Good. Hey Joe, our table's getting empty already. I think I'm going to go see what kind of locks we can get for that.

[00:07:05]Normally, it's like pretty much like a filing cabinet lock. I mean, it's a really simple. They're easy to pick. I wouldn't mind having a specialized lock for this. We'll have to see if there's one available. The other thing that we got to think about is the ice shield that goes here. I haven't seen any of them and I've been researching online.

[00:07:24]It seems like it is a certain type of not plexiglass, but it's a certain type of a plastic that's a high impact and you can get sheets of it. You can form it and cut it out to fit and rivet it on. That's going to be a really tough job. But we also talked to the paint shop and he said about painting underneath of it and then adding it and that gets completely glued down and then painting it. That seems kind of like it almost seems like you could just glue it to this cuz like this this is an epoxy primer. So some people mentioned that this isn't the green primer. It's the wrong stuff. Actually what this is this is a specialty epoxy primer with a high zinc content. So it actually does the same thing as a green primer, but this stuff is as hard as a rock. I mean this is on there. It is way way way better than the green stuff in my opinion. You could glue to it. You could do whatever.

[00:08:19]I mean, this stuff is going to be on there and I don't see any corrosion happening anytime soon. What do you think, Joe? Does it look good with some doors?

[00:08:27]>> Yeah.

[00:08:27]>> And a nose. It's almost like it's growing up. Our 401's growing up >> slowly.

[00:08:32]>> All right. Where where do we have these?

[00:08:34]I'm going to Let's bolt those on.

[00:08:38]>> We'll have to fix that.

[00:08:39]>> Too bad they don't have the gray primer on.

[00:08:42]>> Yeah, that wouldn't have happened.

[00:08:45]A little scratch in there. We'll fix that though. But there's something about that that just makes me happy. Let's just put like four of them in the corners to hold it on for now cuz I think we do have to chase all of these >> especially with these nice brand new >> Yeah.

[00:09:11]All right. I feel like I got to put one more in >> right in the middle there.

[00:09:24]>> All right. Maybe another one.

[00:09:25]>> Maybe bottom corner.

[00:09:26]>> Yeah. Just to make sure.

[00:09:31]>> It's an airplane again.

[00:09:32]>> It's an airplane. It's just ready to fly.

[00:09:35]So, this actually gets some like silicone back behind it to seal it up because it is an inspection panel, but it does go into the heating system and there's usually all kinds of avionics back here. So, this does get sealed up pretty tight.

[00:09:52]So, we previously left all of these pretty loose to let everything kind of adhere. And it's good that it's it's pretty warm in here. We're going to tighten all of these up. And I think I'm actually gonna give it a little bit more time for all of this goop.

[00:10:11]Sealant set a little bit more >> to squeeze out cuz once I tighten all these up, I think some more. Yeah, you can see it now.

[00:10:21]Just kind of squeezing out of there. So, we'll go around here. We're going to tighten all these up. And then what I may do, I think I'll probably end up doing that to all the windows and then cleaning out the sealant tomorrow.

[00:10:35]That'll give it some time for all that extra stuff to to squeeze out. Last thing we want to do is paint it and then have to tighten them up and stuff squeezes out from behind the paint. We don't want that.

[00:10:58]If you look up on the window there, look at how much of that sealant is squeezing out. So, we're going to give that like a day just to kind of settle in and squeeze out of there. And then really the only way to to get the rest of it out to make a nice clean edge for the Pro Seal that we're going to put around the window later after it's painted is to pick it out little by little by little, then come back with like alcohol. probably >> you can't really razor it out because then you're going to be scratching up your windows. So, you can, but you got to be super gentle.

[00:11:28]>> Yeah, I'm thinking plastic razor >> is what I'm thinking. Knives.

[00:11:32]>> Yeah, something like that, I think, is is what my plan is. I don't think you want me with a razor against plexiglass.

[00:11:39]>> Oh, there goes our glass.

[00:11:41]>> Yeah, not after me and Joe spent weeks buffing all that stuff out. I guess we replaced the front and the sides and we buffed the rest of them out. I think we should have just bought once for how long that took us.

[00:11:53]>> Once it's done, we'll give them a good polish.

[00:11:56]>> Yeah, >> we'll seal them and walk away.

[00:11:58]>> All right, so we got the nose on. We got the doors on. We got the side panel.

[00:12:03]Let's bolt in that little panel you had up here. I think I can reach it through here just to make sure it's the right one and it fits.

[00:12:11]>> Seems good for my house.

[00:12:13]>> Looks good for me.

[00:12:15]>> All right.

[00:12:18]Emergency door installation. You remember how this thing goes in, Joe?

[00:12:23]>> The right way.

[00:12:25]>> Well, the big box is up top.

[00:12:27]>> Yeah. And then that other piece secures through here. So, it has this little lip up here that we did paint when we jammed it that this thing here, right here, fits into. And the last time that I tried to get it to fit in, it didn't fit in too good. And I think possibly it may need cleaned up a little bit.

[00:12:55]Let me see this up here first. Yeah, it's not going in yet.

[00:13:06]Is that in?

[00:13:07]>> Push in on the back.

[00:13:10]>> Is it in?

[00:13:11]>> It's in.

[00:13:11]>> I don't know.

[00:13:14]Looks questionable out here.

[00:13:15]>> The hinge. It's meant to just push.

[00:13:17]>> Let me pull this out quick.

[00:13:21]>> Maybe it's only supposed to hang on by 16th of an inch, but it seems like it'll fly out.

[00:13:28]It's like there's this much like a 3/16 inch gap here. And it's like there should be an eighth inch gap. Um, do we have any What can I put on there? I don't know. Put lube. We're going to paint this thing. Put a coil on your finger and run it down the edge.

[00:13:41]>> Yeah, maybe a little LPS or something.

[00:13:43]Yeah, run it in the edge. It won't be too much then.

[00:13:59]Oh, that was a good one.

[00:14:02]It just had to bite me a couple times and it's happy. Yep, there it is. All right, put those pins in, please. Yeah, it was just that eighth of an inch. A little bit of lube and one side in and roaching the other side in. So, it's now it's level here and it's level here.

[00:14:16]Yes, it also does get sealed. I think that gets some kind of a sealant in or something like a soft seal.

[00:14:22]>> Something that'll break.

[00:14:23]>> I know it gets something special up.

[00:14:24]Yeah, cuz you got to This is your like emergency.

[00:14:27]>> You don't want it to be stuck.

[00:14:29]>> Yeah.

[00:14:29]>> Not opening.

[00:14:30]>> You pull the that lever. Then you pull the handle down below that tethers to the pins >> and then you get sucked out >> and then sucked out the window.

[00:14:39]>> No, you use that after you you hit the ground.

[00:14:42]>> Oh, okay. That way you don't need to use the parachute.

[00:14:45]>> Yeah.

[00:14:48]>> All right. Just in case we do get to hook an antenna up in there. That's good. Guess I need a screwdriver and a ladder though.

[00:15:04]Well, it's on for now.

[00:15:07]Definitely fits. All the holes line up and uh yeah, it looks good. All right, another thing done.

[00:15:15]So, we got body work to do. A lot of this stuff's good.

[00:15:20]>> Yeah, I think the fuselage is good.

[00:15:22]>> Look at all these rivets.

[00:15:23]>> Shh.

[00:15:24]>> Who put all them holes there?

[00:15:26]>> Who did put all those holes there?

[00:15:28]>> The mice. But no, I kind of walked around this thing and we never did anything with the wings.

[00:15:33]>> Yeah. So, I noticed a bunch of spots, little dents here, or there, just imperfections like the whole scoop.

[00:15:39]Remember when we got them, we talked about cleaning all this up and >> Yeah. making it at least smoothing it out. So, you marked everything with a piece of tape.

[00:15:47]>> Yeah. All the stuff I thought might we want might want to address or look at.

[00:15:52]>> What's that?

[00:15:53]>> I don't know. I thought it was a rivet, but I don't think there's a rivet there cuz it's all the honeycomb. So, I'm going to do another doubler because no matter what you do there, it's going to come back if you don't double it. I mean, and I'll bet you on the next doubler, I can fit even more rivets.

[00:16:07]>> More rivets?

[00:16:08]>> Yeah, I think so. What do you think?

[00:16:10]>> Uh, try adding a little bit more goop, too.

[00:16:13]>> And some more goop. More goop and rivets.

[00:16:16]We got a bunch of dents on the necessels.

[00:16:19]>> Yeah, the cells looked a little rough, so I wasn't sure what we wanted to do with that.

[00:16:22]>> Yeah. So, I mean, it just has dents kind of all over the place. It's like just little dents. But if we're going to be painting this thing, I mean, this is going to be a $40,000 paint job.

[00:16:31]>> Yeah, we got people sitting in here.

[00:16:33]They're looking out. They're looking right at the top of that. So, >> do you think any of those you could like PDR a little bit?

[00:16:38]>> I could I think if I pull the uh the cap down here, let this drop down inside >> a little access.

[00:16:45]>> I think I could get a lot of access.

[00:16:47]I'll bet you I could probably take out most of that without using any filler.

[00:16:51]>> That would be awesome.

[00:16:52]>> Just cold work it.

[00:16:53]>> So, we're going to let the oxy acetylene torch where it's at. Yeah. No oxy acetylene on that.

[00:16:58]>> Oh, we can't weld them on.

[00:16:59]>> Nope. Nope. When this thing is at Oshkosh and you guys are looking at it, we want to make sure it's as nice as possible. And we want it nice for when people are going to get on the airplane.

[00:17:12]When it shows up, it needs to look first class because it's just going to give people comfort and know that they're getting in a solid airplane that's been taken care of. It's been built right.

[00:17:23]>> Too much work into it to not make it perfect. 100%. But you you you said the wrong word cuz it's not going to be perfect.

[00:17:29]>> Well, almost perfect.

[00:17:32]>> There's lots of rivet rows and different things that to make this thing perfect.

[00:17:38]It would never fly again because it'd be way too heavy with all the mud I'd have to smear to make it right. But there definitely is some uh flaws we want to take care of.

[00:17:48]>> Yeah. Oh, there's a couple dings.

[00:17:49]>> Yeah. I don't know what happened there.

[00:17:51]>> I don't know.

[00:17:52]>> That wasn't like that >> really. I don't remember it being like that.

[00:17:56]>> Yeah. Dent dent.

[00:18:00]>> Oh wow.

[00:18:01]>> Yeah. I don't think I would have left that go.

[00:18:04]>> What is that too? That's like >> It's the same size, same everything.

[00:18:06]>> The same thing happened.

[00:18:08]>> Almost like a little ballpeen hammer.

[00:18:10]>> That's what it does look like. The nice thing is a portion of that I can definitely get to.

[00:18:16]>> Well, the problem is it's a control surface and we do not want to be putting much filler on a control surface. Yeah, we'll take care of those. Yeah. So, pretty much all those little marks one way or the other, we'll go around and we'll make sure that the body, you know, is as straight as possible. It's an airplane and there's not as good of axis like a car and the repairs are totally different. You don't want to slap a bunch of mud in. These are flexing.

[00:18:42]They're vibrating and you just don't want any cracks. I'd rather have a small ding than a crack in the paint later.

[00:18:48]But, we can cold work them in a lot of different ways. get them pretty darn smooth and do some high builds, some little things that will make it look really, really good. I promise you when it's done, this is going to look amazing. What are we doing, Joe? Well, we got a whole lot of panels here that we took off a really long time ago. And we have 402 panels, 401 panels. We need to make sure we have each and every one that we need.

[00:19:14]>> Some of these ones are just they're just a little worn out. We don't want to use those. We want to use the nicest ones.

[00:19:20]them because we have some spare parts and they're all the same panels. We're going to use the best ones. The other thing that we've been finding out is there's just a lot of parts we got to put back on the 401. But for now, I think Nick and Joe are going to get these panels fitted up loosely so we know we have them all. And I'm going to crawl back up there and keep scraping those windows clean because they have to be perfectly clean if we're going to paint this thing.

[00:19:44]>> These uh don't fit.

[00:19:45]>> What do you mean they don't fit? There's uh we need to show two holes.

[00:19:49]>> I guess that would >> Let me see it >> indicate the these are 401 panels trying to go on the 402 wing.

[00:19:54]>> Yeah. So, it's got a little different setup there.

[00:19:57]>> So, yeah, I think I'll have to take a look and see if we have those. If not, we'll cut another hole.

[00:20:02]>> Cool. Yeah, it's not not a not a big deal, >> but that's why we're going through and checking them all, making sure we have what we need.

[00:20:09]>> So, this is what I was talking about on these windows. These were all torqued down, every single one of these to the right torque setting for the screw and nut combo on these windows. And there's a little gap in here. Well, you want the gap sealed, but we want it sealed with Pro Seal as well, which will come out to about here. And it will lap overlap to about here. But we want to get some of the Pro Seal down inside of here and leave plenty of room for it to adhere on both ends.

[00:21:09]10 to the Hey, what are you playing my theme music for?

[00:21:40]How about you?

[00:21:57]>> Well, it's fitting is >> kind of 401 parts on a 402 wing. No, actually this is the 401 part and that's the panel that came with the 40 which should match this wing. So should be all right.

[00:22:48]Everything's cleaning up on this sealant, but it is a lot of work. And I'm trying not to mess up any of the zinc chromate primer that we have on here. The nice thing is this will get all sanded down here in a bit. We'll be able to see any areas that need some attention. And there's going to be sealer put on at the paint shop over top of this yet, like another kind of level of protection. And then at some point, we're going to rebuff all the windows.

[00:23:16]We'll tape them off. It's going to take days to do it, but we'll tape them off in place. We'll buff them up really good. And that's after the paint job.

[00:23:23]That's after. So, that'll be like probably the last thing we do is buff the windows in place after they're sealed, after they have the pro seal around the outside of them, and it's done. But for right now, I basically got half the plane done and it's about ready for its next step.

[00:23:39]>> You know what? Doing all this work makes me think about all the work that was done on our raffle plane.

[00:23:44]>> Oh my gosh. If you guys haven't seen it, overhauled engine. It's almost done. And we did lose a ton of weeks because of that. But whoever wins that airplane is going to have a brand new engine. We got the overhauled prop back. The whole firewalls redone. Front landing gears done. And we're going to do the rest of it too. We have a lot of work to do to it. But somebody is going to get a really, really cool 172 all restored, restood, looking really good. So if you haven't done it yet, make sure you get entered.

[00:24:16]>> It's quickly becoming one of our nicest airplanes.

[00:24:18]>> Oh my gosh. Look, if you don't want an airplane, take a 100 grand. I'll keep it. I'll fly it around myself. Make sure you get entered right here and get yourself a nice 172. And it helps to support us on the 41 project and everything we do at the Rescue Foundations.

[00:24:32]>> So, side one done.

[00:24:35]>> Side one done.

[00:24:36]>> Moving on to side two.

[00:24:37]>> Well, I still got a little bit of the front windshield to do yet, but So, what do you got going on back here?

[00:24:58]>> Well, I'm refitting this panel that mechanics made a long time ago when uh this thing went to its tail. So, I just got everything lined up, made sure everything's going to fit. Should be good to go.

[00:25:09]>> Riveted down and all sealed up. Yeah, guess I'll get my rivets ready. It'll be riveted.

[00:25:54]All right, I think that's all the windows >> looking pretty good.

[00:25:59]>> Yeah, so most all the tape goo is removed enough. I think we're good to go there. And yeah, >> doors on. We got access panels hooked up.

[00:26:09]>> Man, I'm I'm a little tired.

[00:26:11]>> It's been a long week.

[00:26:12]>> Yeah. How are things looking for you, Joe?

[00:26:15]>> All right. Maybe making some adjustments here.

[00:26:18]>> Ooh, that looks pretty.

[00:26:20]>> Well, some of them holes, the screws were sinking in a little deep.

[00:26:24]>> Yeah.

[00:26:24]>> Thinking you might have to go back and only thing is that one's kind of close, so I don't know.

[00:26:28]>> Yeah. What's it look like if you stick one on there?

[00:26:31]>> That definitely looks way more cleaned up.

[00:26:34]>> I don't want the screws breaking through there. You don't want any more fiberglass work.

[00:26:38]>> I It wasn't there to begin with. It was just screw heads. So, but >> what this screw set up?

[00:26:46]>> Yeah. Yeah, >> that looks good.

[00:26:49]>> Yeah, I think it looks good.

[00:26:50]>> So, we'll go back and do that. I'll go ahead and order some more of those since we'll be using a few of them. All right, guys. So, we got a bunch of work done on the 401. We have a bunch more to do, but that's it for this video, guys. Thank you so much for joining in with us. If you haven't done it yet, make sure you get entered into the contest for the 172 raffle.

[00:27:12]>> That would be a shame for me to have to keep that airplane. So, he's always trying to keep it. So, get as many tickets as you can. Maybe give Joe a ride in it when you win it, though.

[00:27:20]Can't wait to see you guys next time.

[00:27:22]We're getting back to work.