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I started the restoration of my Pacer in 2020 after 21 years of ownership. In 2020 I restored all metal firewall forward and in 2021 I did the same from the doorpost forward to the firewall, refurbished or replaced the metal on the belly and also installed all new windows. In 2022 I did the left wing (Recovering the left wing on my Pacer (shortwingpipers.org)) and in 2023 the right wing (Recovering the right wing on my Pacer (shortwingpipers.org)).
This week I started to take care of the doors. The doors came off after I returned from Sun & Fun and I will reskin and repaint them. So, it will be a relatively short project this year. I was also going to do the tail, but I will have to wait until we know what comes out of the rudder post AD.
Was wondering how your trip to Sun N Fun went this year. Any videos from your trip coming out? Enjoy seeing what you will restore next. Any consideration to doing something like a seaplane or patrol door and just covering with lexan? Would that be difficult to do?
Greg, I didn't shoot a video this time. I already have two or three Sun & Fun videos on my channel. After a while they all look the same. However, I did make the 711 NM none stop this year from OKV (Winchester, VA) to LAL in 5 hours 41 minutes and still had 11 gallons of fuels left in the left main tank.
I'm not doing anything special to the doors. I like the original look. I'm just reskinning the doors with fresh aluminum panels and repaint to make them look like new. Of course, you never know what you find on a 64-year-old airplane. I knew my front door had some corrosion on the front bottom corner and I fixed that. However, when I wire brushed the rear passenger door I found that someone "fixed" some corrosion on the doorframe using bondo to fill the holes.
Juergen
Pacer N3342Z
Picture 1: Bondo in the door frame
Picture 2: Front door fixed with the part I cut out
Picture 3: New door skin going on
You've talked about one legging it down to Sun N Fun in the past. Pretty awesome you made it this time. Not sure I have the bladder to accomplish that far of a distance. The restoration is looking great. Understand about the original look of the doors. Great catch on the bond filler and the repair. Looking forward to seeing how this turns out.
I also enjoy watching you progress. I am pleased to
see that you haven’t found any big ugly surprises.
Your videos are really good-I just watched your
Hudson River night flight again (4th time I’ve seen it)
Thanks: 
Likes: 
Pacer restoration, one area at each year
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