Cost of New Interior for a SE Cessna?
Timothy Quill
20 years old. I am in the market for a new interior including all the
plastic pieces except the instrument panel (I'll do this later), seat
coverings, wall and overhead coverings, carpeting, etc.
1) I would appreciate hearing from any of you who have had this done and an
idea of what it should cost me. Cloth is good enough - I don't need leather
(and I probably can't afford it).
2) I live in New Hampshire and if you would have any recommended shops with
a lot of experience for this type of job, I would appreciate it.
Thanks,
Quill
Expert on Everything
Mkraus01
panels, all new seats, headliner, and carpeting). I got their premium
material, new foam in the seats, all for around $2,300. Of course, that was
not installed, but it was pretty easy to do. It looks awesome and I am
thoroughly happy with the quality.
-Mike
N8292W
Jim Weir
shared these priceless pearls of wisdom:
->I just did my 1965 Cherokee 180.
I did the 182 ('58 model) with Airtex interior and couldn't be happier. I got
the seat foam locally and did the canvas underlayment myself, but other than
that, it was total Airtex.
They had a couple of goofs. I sent them pictures and in a week or so I had the
right parts. They are REALLY nice people to deal with.
Jim
Jim Weir (A&P/IA, CFI, & other good alphabet soup)
VP Eng RST Pres. Cyberchapter EAA Tech. Counselor
http://www.rst-engr.com j...@rst-engr.com
coas...@usa.nettt
I bought carpet, headliner and bare side panel stiffeners from them
for my Cherokee. I had a local boat upholstery shop do the seats with
naugahyde backs and wool fronts. Purchased extra naugahyde of the
same seat materal to make my side panels. Whole project took a week
of my vacation, but turned out really nice. Looks new after 6 years.
You just have to be patient and careful.
Can't help you with the plastic trim parts. Only know of the people
who make the Piper trim parts. Perhaps you could check with the
Cessna owner's assn? Best of luck.
Rich Hare
Did an Airtex on my '56 Bonanza about 6 years ago.
It IS a lot of work, but gives you a chance to really "clean
up" the airplane. Generally, I'd say DO it if you like
fiddling with stuff; DON'T do it if you don't.
Don Stretch at Airtex was supremely helpful. On the first
set they sent, the dye lot had changed from their samples
and the shade wouldn't work with my colors. They took it
back and made up a second set. A couple of parts were cut a
little small; they send out replacements no charge. No
hassle, GREAT people to do business with.
I understand they even offer somewhat "custom" sew patterns,
now, if you wnat an Airtex interior without the "Airtex
look".
Rich
ALAN
Memphis (602-895-1717). They did a great job on a leather interior, (
they also will do cloth or any thing you would like.).
Alan Copeland
D.F.S.
> I have a 1978 R-182 with the original interior which looks every minute of
> 20 years old. I am in the market for a new interior including all the
> plastic pieces except the instrument panel (I'll do this later), seat
> coverings, wall and overhead coverings, carpeting, etc.
Replacing ALL The plastic can get quite expensive.
Is it cracked and broken or just dirty and scratched?
I have replaced some parts that really needed it and I have painted others.
Automotive Paint places have paint designed for plastics.
The Brand I used was "SEM" It worked very well and looked almost new.
I would not try and change the color myself, I'd try to stay as close to
the original as possible. Painting the off-white plastic blue to match
the fabrics would probably REALLY show any new scratches or wear.
I have bought 182 parts from kinzie plastics.
As to the upholstry, I have always done this myself with whatever materials
I determined met the legal requirements for MY plane and certification
standards it was built under.
My local FSDO says this is decorative, nonstructutal and perfectly legal
for my as the pilot/owner to do myself. I was not going to argue with that.
Marc
Newps
seats and all six side panels of my 182. Also now covered in leather are the
sun visors, entry assist handles on the forward door post and the baggage door
chain. Both the front and back of all four seats are now leather instead of
that crappy solid plastic that used to be there. Also I had the shop sew me in
a bunch of leather pockets in useful places. It cost $2000 and the only labor
for me was the removal and reinstallation of the panels and seats. The
upholstery shop put the leather on the seats and side panels. I used an Airtex
carpet and headliner. The carpet is of mediocre quality and the headliner is
pretty good.
Newps
"D.F.S." wrote:
> Timothy Quill <tim....@an.hitchcock.org> wrote:
> > I have a 1978 R-182 with the original interior which looks every minute of
> > 20 years old. I am in the market for a new interior including all the
> > plastic pieces except the instrument panel (I'll do this later), seat
> > coverings, wall and overhead coverings, carpeting, etc.
>
> Replacing ALL The plastic can get quite expensive.
I replaced all the plastic when I redid the interior. I went with Kinzie and it
cost about $900 for the plastic and about $250 for one of the local mechanics to
install it after hours.
D.F.S.
> "D.F.S." wrote:
Well, I thought I spent almost that much with Kinzie for just the seat backs and
plastic "Pockets" for the front seats. I figure that is proably 1/3 of the plastics
on the interior.
I like what I got from them, but I'd still paint pieces unless they were broken.
My seat backs were just too busted up.
Marc
Jay Honeck
Our Warrior received an all new Airtex interior in '96, installed by the
meatheaded former owner (an FBO that was going belly-up in WI).
The materials are generally good quality, and have held up well -- but the
installer makes a HUGE difference. The side panels in our plane were put in
using way more screws (of different sizes) than necessary, the seat
headrests were installed BACKWARDS -- some parts were cut slightly too
small, some seams weren't straight, etc.
Over time we've fixed all this stuff, but do it right in the first place!
Also -- the carpeting had to be replaced this year, after just four years of
wear. Of course, they installed a LIGHT GRAY carpeting, which showed every
speck of dirt and grease. Stupid. We had an aircraft upholstery shop
replace it with charcoal gray carpet that looks GREAT, for half the price of
new Airtex.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Warrior N33431
Timothy Quill <tim....@an.hitchcock.org> wrote in message
news:B663A5F1.259%tim....@an.hitchcock.org...
Ron Rapp
wrote:
>Also -- the carpeting had to be replaced this year, after just four years of
>wear. Of course, they installed a LIGHT GRAY carpeting, which showed every
>speck of dirt and grease. Stupid. We had an aircraft upholstery shop
>replace it with charcoal gray carpet that looks GREAT, for half the price of
>new Airtex.
My C182P has fairly light colored carpet. It's a light tan/grey
berber carpeting, very high quality, and it's got some stains in it,
but I think they're from a drink spill or something like that. It
still looks decent, but the one really smart thing the installer did
was to make the carpet sort of "sectional". It's velcroed together,
but you wouldn't know it unless you lift up certain sections and see
where the overlap is. Also, there are runners along the back seat and
for the pilot and copilot floors, so the actual carpeting underneath
is in good shape.
I figure replacing carpet must be fairly inexpensive. What did you
pay for yours?
--Ron
Jay Honeck
> pay for yours?
Because we were in no hurry, the guy at the upholstery shop "saved up"
pieces of carpet left over from bigger jobs (you do two King Airs, and
you've got enough leftover for our spam cans!) for a few months, and gave us
a good price.
All told, including stitching the new carpeting into the existing side
panels (the carpet goes six inches or so up the sides, making integrating
new stuff kinda tricky), we paid $250.
Shoot, I can't get ANYTHING done to my plane for $250 -- let alone something
that makes THAT big of a difference in the overall quality of the
experience. Damn, we just paid $300 trying to fix a nosewheel shimmy, and
got zippo to show for it...
--
Jay