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Airtex interior refurbishment -- PIREP

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EchoDelta

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The original interior in our 1979 Arrow IV was getting to be pretty shabby, so last summer we began to shop around for refurbishment. Quotes from nearby aircraft interior shops gave us sticker shock. Just reupholstering the four seats in leather would cost well over $6,000. Re-doing all of the side panels, which really needed to be done as well, would be another several thousand.

A few years ago we replaced the plane's carpet using a kit provided by Airtex, and we were quite satisfied with the quality of materials, the accuracy of the fit, and the ease of installation. But there is a big leap in complexity between carpet and seats and sidewalls. Nevertheless, given the unaffordable cost of getting the work done by a professional shop, we decided to go the Airtex route and a DIY interior refurb.

We ended up choosing all-leather seat upholstery (the cost adder over cloth or vinyl was really not as much as we had anticipated) and matching vinyl side panels. The Airtex side panels for the Arrow can be done with a contrasting vinyl trim color as well as a carpet "kick panel" on the bottom. We opted for a trim color that pretty closely matches one of the exterior stripe colors and kick panel in the same Airtex carpet we had previously installed.

We placed out order with Airtex in August and were told that the lead time for the side panels would be about 6 weeks and for the seats about 16 weeks. Besides the basic four seats and side panel kits the order included the following, as per Airtex recommendations:

-Leather upholstery for the four headrests

-Material to replace the seat bottom slings

-Door seal welt kit

-1/2 inch foam soundproofing

-Contact cement

Total cost for the materials was a bit over $4,700. Shipping expenses, which were charged separately when the materials were shipped, added a bit over $300. The materials arrived roughly on the promised schedule. While we got everything needed to do the side panels in November we decided to put them off and do everything at once when the seat kits arrived. In retrospect this probably did not save us all that much time on the overall installation process.

The seat kit finally arrived in mid-January, and we coordinated a schedule for the three of us (co-owners) to work together on the installation project. The job took one full weekend and three evenings. Here are some impressions that might assist others considering a similar project

Airtex does not include any instructions at all with their kits, and not much in the way of help on their website. Fortunately, by observing how the old upholstery and side panels fit the installation process becomes fairly intuitive. there are some videos on YouTube that depict installing Airtex seat upholstery, but because the kits and their installation are different for different aircraft models and model years they were not overly helpful.

The seats need to be stripped of old upholstery, seat bottom sling material, and padding, down to the bare frames. This includes removing the old hog rings that stretch the upholstery below the seats. Since everything is going to be replaced anyway a certain amount of ripping in this process won't hurt, but you have to be careful not to use so much force that you bend the frames. Some folks might want to strip the frame to bare metal and repainting them, but ours appeared to be in good condition, so we didn't bother to, for example, remove remnants of old glue.

Installing new seat bottom sling material requires that the material, which is provided in a large sheet, be cut to the required shape. We used the removed old slings as templates, and that worked well. In reality, this step does not require much precision, and the material can be trimmed as needed as you install it. Airtex provides plenty of extra sling material in case you screw up and need a "do-over." The contact cement that Airtex provides works perfectly to get a good fit between the sling material and the frame. However, you need to be careful to clean your hands after use and before you handle the leather material.

I was very nervous about getting the seat upholstery to look professional, but it turns out that it was not really that difficult. The seat bottoms come with the new foam padding already glued to the leather, and fitting them onto the seat bottom frames, after installing new sling material, was pretty easy. Using the provided hog rings to secure the upholstery to the sling material takes a little practice. It's good to have a pair of heavy-duty wire cutters to remove the rings that you mis-apply as you are learning. Airtex includes a lot more hog rings than you will need, anyway. Based on comments from others, I purchased a good hog ring pliers for about $12 on Amazon prior to the project. The Airtex kit does include pliers, but they are not very good ones. Better pliers make the job a lot easier and less frustrating.

Putting the padding and upholstery on the seat backs is a bit more difficult thaan the seat bottom. The padding is positioned on the frame and the upholstery is then pulled down over the padding. We found that turning the upholstery "sleeve" inside-out at the bottom made it easier to get the top properly onto the padding at the top of the seat back.

Unless you are an expert, installing the seat bottoms, and especially the seat backs, would be difficult for a single person to do. In fact, the entire job -- both seats and side panels, is really a two-person operation. On the other hand, we found that a third person is best put to work on side-tasks such as cutting out and gluing on seat sling material.

An important thing to do in putting on the seat upholstery is making sure that the seam at the middle of the back lines up with the seam at the middle of the bottom when the seat is re-assembled. This can be a bit tricky, but small adjustments can be made by repositioning the "tail" of the seat bottom upholstery after the back is mated to the bottom. (What this means will be obvious.)

Installing the side panels and door seal welt takes a bit of time mainly because you have to make cutouts for vents and other protuberances. The corrugated plastic backing material, but not the upholstery material, comes with holes pre-cut, but their size and position are not perfect. Trimming is required and cuts in the upholstery must be made with a great deal of caution. We made no effort to match the existing mounting holes for the screws that secure the side panels, but rather simply drilled new holes for the sheet metal finishing screws. We also did not reuse the old finishing screws and washers but rather invested a few bucks on nice shiny new ones.

We ordered foam material to fabricate new soundproofing insulation panels to fit behind the new side panels, but when we got the old panels off we determined that the existing soundproofing was in very good shape (most likely as a result of the plane always being hangared) so we left it in place. This probably saved many hours of work.

Installing the new right front side panel involves a lot of pushing, and when we did that we accidentally dislodged wires connecting to the copilot and rear seat headset jacks. Be very careful of those, and any other, wires around and behind the side panels as you slide them on.

The end result: We think the project turned out very well. The Airtex material is of very good quality. Fit and finish (our work) are not exactly perfect, but we think the result is more than acceptable for a 40 year old airplane. See before and after pictures in posts to follow.

Doing one airplane hardly makes me an expert, but if you have any questions about specific items or the project in general I will be happy to address them.
 

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