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After an alternator failure and replacement, I continued on with a new plane power regulator and decided to replace the associated wiring. Getting to the 60 amp ALT breaker for the new wire is proving difficult. Removing the bottom radio gives limited room. The bus bar shows two cracks using an inspection mirror so a new one will have to be fabricated and installed. There’s limited info in the manual on removing the air box to gain access . It appears it’s been removed in the past based on the glops of sealant along the NACA profile, anyone have experience on removing the rivets that hold it onto the honeycomb?
Kevin Purcell A&P ATP
N28541 KLCI -
You do not have to remove the aluminum NACA vent. What you want to remove is the plastic airbox. This is attached to the bottom of the instrument panel with 2 screws. There should be two snap covers on the bottom of the box (they might be missing), remove them and then you can stick a Phillips screwdriver up through the holes to get to the screws. Once that is done, then you need to carefully cut the Silicon rubber (RTV) away around the side of the fuselage. Take that slow and carefully, you don’t want to do damage to the plastic. Once it is off, clean up the old RTV and then you are ready for re-installing.
While you have them out, if the vent vanes do not stay put or are in bad shape, check with Roscoe at Yankee Aviation for new replacements. -
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Thanks for the link, i’ve owned the tiger since last july, unfortunately it appears previous owners maintenance didn’t attach the boxes as Roscoe showed in the video. Instead of using the two vertical screws and sealant around the NACA scoop, they used 6 Rivets to attach the plastic flange to the honeycomb, inserting the rivets from outside the fuselage and using non stainless washers against the plastic flange. The rivets must have been sealed before the last paint job.
I was able to get to the bus bar by removing the bottom avionics tray and pushing the glove box back. Fabricated a new one today.
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Ouch, that is going to make future panel work tough. At some point you might want to consider pulling them out and re-installing them properly. If the plastic is in bad shape check with Roscoe, he has some old ones that are still serviceable.
I plan to pull them out of my AA-1B next annual to replace the factory circuit breakers and fuses with Klixon circuit breakers and to replace the panel switches you can’t get to with the air boxes in place. I last had them out maybe 15 years ago. -
Success! what i assumed to be through rivets were just the ones holding the plastic end cap on the vent box. previous maint didn’t do anything incorrect, once i used a plastic scraper to work through the silicone it came right out. found one of the attachment screws rolling around inside the air box
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Great! Now you know how to work there in the future. While you have them out it is a great time to replace those old factory switches with new ones, get rid of the 10 AMP fuse for the cigar lighter from out of the wire bundle (mount on the panel if you can), and as I indicated I plan to do get rid of the old factory fuses and CBs with Klixon CBs.
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