Becoming a Stinsoneer

My brother Kevin and I are building an antique airplane that we hope to fly someday.  We got N97917 Stinson 108-1 built in 1946 from my cousin Mike and his wife Amy who had the airplane since the late 1970s.  This blog will cover our assembly and hopefully flight of this aircraft.  I always thought one day I would restore a classic car, I didn't think it would be a classic airplane but we are excited about this project and so are our families.

Here's a photo of it when it flew.  Mike's got his head poked under the cowling while his dad Uncle George in brown coat looks on.

Background History
I've always been interested in flying and took flying lessons when I was 15 at Palo Alto airport in an Aeronca Champ from Mr. Maynard Brown in 1974-75.  I used my paper route money to pay for the lessons and rode my bike out the the airport for each lesson.  I only got about 7-8 hours logged, but it was a blast.  When I find the photo of me and the plane I'll be sure to post it.  I ran out of money and then turned 16 and got to driving and football, dating, etc.  But I never forgot how much fun I had and always wanted to get my private pilot's license someday.  Kevin and I were always tinkering with machines when we were young and actually made our spending money by repairing friends cars in our parents driveway.  Kevin really liked aviation too and in the past years invited me, Dad, and my sons with his kids out to the Reno Air races each year for about the past 5 years.  We really liked going into the pits and checking out the aircraft on display.

Well, I read an article last year about LSA (light sport aircraft) and thought that might be a way to get back into the air for me.  Since Mike was the only pilot I knew, I called him and he said he wanted to get rid of his airplane.  Dad said he would help Kevin and I get it and volunteered an old garage behind his house we could use as a hangar.  First I had to modify the garage to become a hangar by adding an 8 foot extension to fit the fuselage into.  I also had to get electricity to the garage, fix the foundation, remove all the termite timbers, etc.  Finally, it was ready enough to move it over in early 2010 from the storage facility.

Here's the garage extension being built and using Dad's truck as a scaffold. Garage is older than our airplane.

N97917 in mini storage.

Kevin, Mike, and Dad moving one of the wings to put on the lumber rack of Dad's truck.

All secured ready for towing from it's storage in Milpitas, CA across the bay via back roads to our "hangar" in Palo Alto where we'll do the work.

Me and Mike moving it into "the hangar."

Safe in it's new home.

Early in 2010 Kevin and I started buying parts we knew we would need for the rebuild.  I took a sportair airplane fabric class which was great to teach me how to cover our bird.  We got a restored panel, radio, gauges, headliner, carpeting and a bunch of other parts from Stinsoneer John Baker.  Life got in the way until September 2011 when Kevin and I spent part of Labor Day touching up some rust spots on the frame (basically we repainted the frame with 2-part epoxy primer from Polyfiber).

Here's Kevin doing some of the painting with a hobby airbrush.  Hey, it worked and reduced most of the overspray.

In October I got started on the rudder pedals.  There is no assembly manual and we basically got boxes of parts (some new, some old) and no instructions (they don't exist, I've checked) to put it back together. I've searched a lot online.  Read a lot online and looked at builds of other aircraft and thought the rudder pedals would be a logical place to start.  Mike had already bought new rudder pedals which allowed the co-pilot to be also able to apply the brakes.  I rummaged through all my boxes and found some new bearings (Fafnir KP5A) Mike got for the job. However, I found that they had to be modified by adding a sleeve to fit the AN4 aircraft bolt specified to hold the assembly together.  I asked around and fellow Stinsoneers said to use a piece of chromoloy 4130 steel tubing to make a sleeve which I did.  Here's what I did:

Here's a photo of the workshop in it's "finished" state.  We hope this structure will only be a temporary home and later torn down and a finer/bigger one built in it's place so we did what we could to get it fixed up.  BTW, before we even started on this project, we met with our IA (Inspection Authorization inspector)  who looked at our project, paperwork, and asked us some questions like if we knew what end of a wrench to use and gave us the OK to start work on our airplane.

Here's the 4130 steel tubing, the new Fafnir KP5A bearing.

Here's the bearing fitted onto the metal tubing which I had to file down and smooth down to the right OD using my drill to spin the tubing like a lathe.  Afterward, I also had to ream out the inside to fit the AN4 bolt specified to hold the bearing into the ends of the rudder pedal torque tubes.

Here's the new bearing on the left, the sleeve I made in the middle, and the old bearing on the right.  The old bearing would not spin at all.

Here's the rudder pedals installed.  Took me a while to figure out which one went in first and the end brackets were identical at first pass, but when it wouldn't fit and was hitting the other tube, I took them both off again and really examined them and found one was modified slightly to fit in the close tolerance.  It seems like some of the bolt heads in the tube or welded brackets still hit the other tube, but when the pedal is slightly flexed forward (when the brake cylinders are installed it should pull the top of the pedal slightly back and then the rudder pedal torque tubes operate freely--I hope).

Well, that's it for now. Long post, but this one had a lot of catching up to do.  This is my first blog and my first airplane I've restored so please be kind.  I look forward to sharing this adventure with you and appreciate your input and advice as you look over my shoulder on this adventure.