The International Cessna 170 Association

We have been blessed with a break in the rain so I have been flying my new 1948 170 ! Couple of issues have arisen that I could use some help to resolve. I love flying around city, harbor and beachs at night and there are no panel lights nor dome lights or anything that works. There is an old grimes light looking flood on left pillar by pilots head that doesnt work.There is a rheostat that doesnt seems to control anything. There is also no glare shield to tuck some leds under sure others have come up with something resourceful to facilitate seeing instruments.

Second issue there is a vintage retractable light on the wing that when operated came down and lights up brilliantly but will not willingly retract. Perhaps here the switch just reverses polarity to retract? Is there a way to override light manually to retract or is there a convenient place to access wiring to directly apply 12 volts to attempt retract? Or what can I do to get rid of my new speed brake.

Third thing is the heater. Plane is ser.# 18623 . The heater as indicated in IPB seems simple enough but when I look firewall it has simple vent but inside it must be in that tunnel on floor but I dont see any vents for heated air to enter cabin. It doesnt really work as configured is the problem . Found cable slides in adel clamp when operated so opened by hand, and found no appreciable difference. The good thing is I love flying this plane it is honest and fun to fly! Thanks, Tim anyone recommend mech familiar with 170 near charleston sc?

As far as the lighting goes, I have vintage eye brown lights on mine, together with the Grimes flood light. Both are controlled by the round rheostat found on the bottom middle edge of the panel as are several instruments with internal lighting.

The eyebrow lights look something like that shown above (but the panel is not a Cessna.) There are also light posts than can be installed in individual instruments.

Can’t help on the other issues....

Lights.

Lets start with what your 170 MIGHT have. The fact your airplane has a rheostat tells me it may have/had sockets for lights inside the false panel we assume you still have (A picture of your panel would help). If you find light sockets chance are they won't work due to bad grounding. It relies on the socket clip tension on the side of the panel for this. I ran a ground wire to each socket and only then would all work. If you get them working you will likely only find white clear bulbs as the red ones haven't been available for some time. The white lights may be a little bright. I've colored clear bulbs with red marker and or thin red paint. You can spend lots of time on these and come away with marginal lighting. Which is better than you have now. I don't want to raise your expectations to high.

The old eyebrow lights were an option 40 years ago. You can still find them. Their bulbs draw a lot of power. Then there are the light posts. Also a 30 year old option.

For a few years I commuted with my 170 at night. My panel lighting consisted of two instruments lit by eyebrow lights ,2 light with post lights and as many of the stock lights in the panel that would work that night. I eventually devised and built my own LED experimental lighting that worked very well for me. For the reason of legality, I can't recommend that route.

What you really want is a low power LED option and the only one I know of are the Nulites. They are pricey, specially if you think one should have all their instruments lit. They have been placed under the false panel by someone I seem to recall.

Of course you can also add more flood lighting and I would recommend retro fitting LEDs in them.

The landing light I can't help you with.

The heat on 170s up till about '53 is anemic at best. The 170s with the center tunnel distribution system actually tend to work a bit better than the single '50-'52 valve above the pilots foot, in my experience. Best you can do is be sure the two forward vents are open and the scat is good from the fire wall to the first box. I assume you've already looked at the scat firewall forward. I don't know if you could even change the scat in the forward center console to be honest. The scat running to the back that you have is probably full of holes and that probably doesn't matter as the heat just comes out the flap handle slot.

On your heat issue, check out this thread. Assuming ragwings have a cabin air shutoff (I have a B-model, so I’m not real up to speed on the intricacies of ragwings), for safety reasons you want to make sure it’s working. The linked thread will give you several options for preventing the cable from slipping through the clamp.

For instrument lighting, I have a Bob Schroers lighted glareshield (that I won as a door prize at the 1985 Convention). Bob is no longer with us, but if you have a reasonable FSDO, you might be able to design something similar and install it on a field approval.

My airplane has no glareshield, just a carpet matte laying on the dash. Looking through the 337s obtained from the FAA, at one time my aircraft had the R.J. Schroers glareshield. I would like to put that back on so that I had Instrument lighting under the glareshield. Anyone have any ideas?

In this thread from years ago http://www.cessna170.org/forums/viewtop ... roers#p484 someone had a scan of what I assume was the STC paperwork. Does anyone have a copy available today?

Thanks!

As Bruce said, check the scat hose from firewall to heater plenum. Mine was full of holes and shot. In the cabin the tunnel has sliding port holes at the front of your feet. Check to see if they are open and not covered.
My panel lights have the squeeze and tension bulb holders and I got mine to work OK with the reostat and painted the bulbs red with nail polish.

John

Check all the grounds on all of the locations, get rid of the wire-wound rheostat, and install an approved solid state rheostat. The original panel lights work ok if you still have the false panel/cover installed and the original sockets are still functional. Finding the red bulbs will be an issue though.

There are also approved white/red LED floodlights that work very well but not sure if they can be dimmed.