Tractor Supply sell wire cutters and gate material!

Sweet location

Ha! That tractor supply probably also sells a number of parts used on your Maule as well!

Nice setup, back to two maules again? If there was anywhere that’s got affordable housing it’s probably Kentucky. Or West Virginia. I’d take either in a heartbeat if I could get away with it from work.

Congrats on moving to the bluegrass state!
I use a grass strip that backs up to my property, taxi the M5 right up the road to it! Turns out airplanes have legal road access in Texas, wire cutters notwithstanding!
Maybe the airport manager could be persuaded to ignore your new "gate" project!!
V/R
Smokey

PS: stop by EKX and look up my Cub buddy Bob Jones, great guy, excellent craftsman.

Has been a visually slow couple weeks as I get my shop set up and running but major progress has happened. Over the past week I've been prepping for pulling the wings on the M6 to get it in the shop. Pickled the engine, drained fuel, disconnected everything, built a wing stand/cart, etc. Everything went pretty well today when we pulled them. Had the wings pulled and the fuselage/wings into the shop in a couple hours. Supposed to have a lot of rain tomorrow so glad we got it done.

No work on the new fuselage. Next step will be pulling the control system ot of the M6, do a little rehab if needed and install into the new fuselage. Would've been nice to do this before fabric of course but that's not how life worked out this time. Then will start getting some longer lead items going - avionics ordering, getting stuff painted, etc etc.

My homemade wing stand. 6" carpet strips but the load bearing comes from 2" straps underneath. All materials were found for free, love it.


Draining gas. Ended up being about 25 gallons. The dual drains on the Maule make this a breeze. I had enough clean metal cans and a metal funnel trying to reduce any chance of static but I also did it outside so I didn't feel there was any risk at all.


Everything stripped off the wings - control surfaces, tips, fairings, etc. Waiting to crew to arrive to pull them.


Wings off, stand around and talk about life.


Nerve racking driving this less than a half mile on a highway.


The fuselage trailered perfectly. I bolted the seaplane lift rings back onto the fuselage spar attach point where they came off of and they were excellent tie down points. Had planned to rig this up to tow backwards, running on the bushwheels but this trailer was too easy to pass up. Had ramps and fit perfectly.

Looks like that one Bushwheel’s about worn out…

Andy Young wrote: ↑

Wed Feb 16, 2022 4:23 pm

Looks like that one Bushwheel’s about worn out…

Not if you park so that spot is on the bottom

I've been making progress deconstructing the plane to swap everything over to the new fuselage. Engine/prop are off. Tailfeathers are off with fabric removed, ready to head to media blast and powdercoat along with some other parts. Control cables are all out. All of them are good condition but I still plan to make new ones from scratch. Haven't touched the panel yet. It's about time to order the avionics though. GTR225 and EDM900 are the main ones. Waiting on the Tailbeacon X to be approved to use as my transponder.

Pulling the Engine. At this point the propeller is already a display piece in my living room for the next year.


This plane came with an awesome field approved exhaust. Many improvements over stock but likely the most value-added one is the spherical joint rather than a slip joint which is prone to cracking mufflers. Also improvements in tailpipe-to-firewall attachment, header design, and cabin heat exchanger design. Love it. According to logs, its been on the plane for 800 hours and zero signs of current or previous cracking anywhere.


Engine storage. My grandfather had this cart leftover from when our family machine shop sold. It's about too heavy for common uses but perfect for holding an IO540 - perfect size, super heavy duty, and has a lockout foot to keep it from moving. A nice petina to boot. In this pic you can see the heat exchanger studs on the muffler - extra surface area to improve cabin heating.


Tailfeathers came off easy and the steel was good. I think it's perfect timing, the paint is starting to show signs of light surface rust in spots but nothing that needs to be repaired. Notice the excellent lighting inside the fuselage.. I took the time to hang a 4ft LED shop light in there. Game changer.


I am taking lots of pictures and notes like this one when I take apart things to make sure I get them back together correctly later. I am lucky to have the maule drawings on my computer as well but it's nice to know how it actually was.


The copilot seat needed a fiberglass repair as I purchased it. I knew this ahead of time. I took off the upholstery to see what all was wrong and man the horrors of maule seat design are real. They are not a great design, lacking structure where it's needed most, fiberglass pan is glassed to the steel tubes (what??), and for some reason the steel tubes stop about 3" below the top of the fiberglass so that top section is just asking to be broken off. Luckily, they are a very simple design so fixing them is trivial. I do like the shape of the fiberglass pan they use, they got that right. This steel frame has been repaired before. I think part of the issue is that the upholstery is drilled/riveted to the steel tubes meaning theres a ton of 1/8" holes in a structural tube. Leads to cracks and bending.




That's all for now.

Welding a small gusset on the side of the angle at the back rest and seat frame really strengthens the frame. Pretty common beef up when repairing cracked frames.

All the holes drilled in it…. well that’s a different story. Sure you don’t have another set of seats?

Kirk

Kirk wrote: ↑

Mon Mar 28, 2022 5:17 pm

Welding a small gusset on the side of the angle at the back rest and seat frame really strengthens the frame. Pretty common beef up when repairing cracked frames.

All the holes drilled in it…. well that’s a different story. Sure you don’t have another set of seats?

Kirk

My "repair" plan is to do an owner produced part per the maule drawings using new materials. People are wanting hundred for old seats that likely have all the same issues.

I think I'll also switch to the "extended seat frame" (maule drawing #1323E) to give me more legroom. Never would have known this as an option if not for the drawing files.

Glad to see that the exhaust system is still in good shape with the hrs it has on it.

Ooh I gotta check out that drawing for extended seat. Does it use the same fiberglass pan?

Tim, you have a winning system there.

Kirk

Kirk wrote: ↑

Tue Mar 29, 2022 3:12 am

Ooh I gotta check out that drawing for extended seat. Does it use the same fiberglass pan?

Tim, you have a winning system there.

Kirk

Kasey at Maule said the extended frames have become the normal ones, all new maules are shipped with them. You can extend the bottom of the fiberglass pan or buy a new one. She said the frames are $500 and the pans just got a new supplier so they don’t know the price yet but it used to be $500 as well.

Agree about the exhaust Tim, can’t say enough good things about it after my last M7 had the stock exhaust and was riddled with cracks. I imagine it’s a few lbs heavier with the stainless shroud, studs, etc but well worth it in my mind.

I didn't know there was an extended seat, thats awesome. Are you going to buy the frame from Maule? Also that exhaust is pretty cool, seems like it would be relatedly simple to get a stainless ball joint from Spruce and take it all to a good welder to get put together. The paperwork and approval sounds like it would be difficult though.