Can anyone tell me if they have had any experience installing new plastic doors and liner panels in their aircraft and how difficult you found it to be.
I have spoken to the very nice guys at Vantage Plane Plastics (where I intend to aquire same) who told me the panels "Just need trimming".
I look forward to any reply that can enlighten me on this.
I just removed, sanded, primered and painted mine. Worked well and I used some super glue on 2 parts that had cracks in them. As for the re-install, it was easy. About an hour to take out, 2-3 hours for insulation additions and about 2 hours to put back on. Prep, paint and the rest of it took about 5 days working about 1 hour a day.
I ordered a new instrument panel cover from Plane Plastics. Very good material, however as noted, I did need to do a fair amount of triming to make it fit right. Also, even though I ordered the part for our make and model it did not fit as nicely as the original. We found that many of the fastening holes did not line up with those in the panel and we had to drill outside the beveled area. All and all it was still worth the work.
I replaced all of the plastic in my -140 last summer, and due to wildly varying prices between vendors, and availability of parts from any one vendor, I ended up using 3 different vendors' parts: Vantage, Piper Plastic (Heinol), and Planeparts.com.
All three seemed to produce good quality parts. I was spray painting the parts so the slight variations in colour was not an issue. But I made sure that all mating parts were from the same vendor.
All required some trimming. I used a dremel tool with a sandpaper wheel attachment for shaping, and a cutting wheel for trimming bulk excess material. It's a bit of a mark/cut/fit_check/cut_more/ fit_check/shape/install process. Lather, rinse, repeat.
But it's all worth it in the end - I think it looks great!
I used Krylon 'Fusion for Plastic' rattle cans to repaint my interior.
I used the satin finish black, and held the spraycan a bit farther away than normal to get a more flat, less shiny, almost overspray-like uniform appearance that made my instrument panel plastic overlays look like brand new. A year later, they are still looking fantastic.
The SEM products are available at your local automotive supplier. They are sprays specifically designed for "staining" plastic. This stuff is tuff as nails. I learned about it from my CFI who has been the oracle for all things Piper in this part of the state. With his training aircraft, as you might suspect, the abuse and punishment got pretty gruesome at times. You can clean it with light solvents and scrub it with soft scrub. I've used it on my plane's beautification process and love it.
If you care about flammability, fumes, and the like, in the horrible event that you are caught in a plane that is burning...., these stains do not add to the noxious/volatile load. Please take this as my personal plug for all of my fellow DIY'ers to make certain to use burn tested (and tagged) products for the seat coverings, carpeting, cushions and foams used in the rejuvenation of the aircraft. Yes, it costs more. I whine and moan louder than most when I pay for this stuff too.
