What year is this Taylorcraft?

[N33972]

Re: What year is this Taylorcraft?

Hi Mike, The picture above is me trying to duplicate the shape and size of the original. When I bought it, it had a butchered up set of rear windows that were to high and to far back. You can see it in the picture below. An original rear window outline for a '41 De Luxe would be most helpful. Please explain sissy straps ? I can't imagine anything on our macho T-Cups having the name Sissy !! Jeff

[Ragwing nut]

Re: What year is this Taylorcraft?

Hi Mike, The picture above is me trying to duplicate the shape and size of the original. When I bought it, it had a butchered up set of rear windows that were to high and to far back. You can see it in the picture below. An original rear window outline for a '41 De Luxe would be most helpful. Please explain sissy straps ? I can't imagine anything on our macho T-Cups having the name Sissy !! Jeff

If you PM me your address, I will make a tracing of an original rear "D" window and mail it to you. I call them sissy straps , but they are a leather pull strap located at the top of the front door frame and attached by a ring bolted to the fuselage.

Mike

[Dano"T"]

Re: What year is this Taylorcraft?

I don't know if my rear windows are original either, But I like the way they look. They look similar to the ones in "THE TAYLORCRAFT STORY" by Mr. PEEK but seem flatter across the top.PICTURE

[Forrest Barber]

Re: What year is this Taylorcraft?

Lets Ask Forrest: the "B" book says 2824 is a BL-12 , engine # 3574-2, Fahlin prop # 4701, Wt #734 , was entered into the field book on 5-12-41
( the date that my wife Patty was born, shhhhh don't mention this to her)

N33972 , was flown by WAC William A. Crawford, lic#34671 on May 10th &
13th for a Total of one hour.
Deluxe? many changes have been made over the years I am sure....

[N33972]

Re: What year is this Taylorcraft?

Mike, there is a small piece of tubing welded just below the aileron cable pully on the upper door post. This must be where the strap bolted on ?

Jeff

[N33972]

Re: What year is this Taylorcraft?

Hi Forrest, Many changes ? on a 65 year old airplane ? you can't be serious.
It has a field aproved baggage, skylight, A-65, and during the tear down for restoration I discovered that it has a 13 rib wing on one side and a 15 rib wing on the other. Also the horizontal stabs are different. Whatever it takes to keep them flying. Thanks for the reply, Dues are on the way for this and TOC. Jeff

[Ragwing nut]

Re: What year is this Taylorcraft?

Oh yeah, De Luxe models are all 15 rib wings with 1200 gross instead of the lower gross weight Standard models have.

Modifications, there is so many little differences between all the airplanes that it would take pages to describe them all. We have parted out over 50 different T-crafts over the years and have learned how different they all are.

Mike

[Forrest Barber]

Re: What year is this Taylorcraft?

Amen to Jeff & Mike , and a lot of stuff gets passed on that is not correct.

[VictorBravo]

Re: What year is this Taylorcraft?

Forrest, speaking of DeLuxe airplanes, I have a question...

Mine is s/n 2387 delivered to a dealer in Los Angeles in November 1940. I believe it had a closed cowl as an optional upgrade at that time, but it was a Lycoming engine. I have the cast metal front cowl grills with the first section of the DeLuxe trim cast into the cowl grills, but none of the other trim parts. I have no "sissy strap" ring bolted anywhere near the upper door frame. It also does not have wheel pant brackets.

Can you figure out whether these are the original cowl grills that my airplane was built with? If they are, then I'll leave them on and search for the rest of the trim. If they are not original, then I have a couple of people who want them for a real antique restoration which mine is not.

[Dano"T"]

Re: What year is this Taylorcraft?

If so Bill....there was a guy at our airport that said he has the trim pieces....he said he'd throw them on my seat next time he saw my plane at the airport....I have not seen him since, but he's in our EAA chapter so I know who he is. I'll give him a call. He said I could have them. I'll let you know.

[N33972]

Re: What year is this Taylorcraft?

The Cowl grills are something else that I did not consider, mine also has the cast grills with the first section of trim. Jeff

[VictorBravo]

Re: What year is this Taylorcraft?

Now there is even more of a mystery to me. My airplane has exactly the type of cowl grills shown in the photo of Jeff's airplane in the previous post in this thread.

Today I saw a 1946 Taylorcraft that had cast cowl grills, but those grills extended the cast aluminum trim all the way around the corner of the nose bowl IN ONE PIECE, cast into the cowl grill piece.

When I saw that, my heart sank because I thought mine had been that way once, but someone cut them off flush with the air intake.

THEN I just saw Jeff's photo which looks the same as mine.

What I'd like to know is whether there were two or three different types of cast aluminum cowl grils, and whether SOME of them wrapped around the nose bowl and some ended at the fgront cowl air opening.

Anyone know this answer... Forrest??? Mr. Baker??? Mr. Peek??

[3Dreaming]

Re: What year is this Taylorcraft?

Now there is even more of a mystery to me. My airplane has exactly the type of cowl grills shown in the photo of Jeff's airplane in the previous post in this thread.

Today I saw a 1946 Taylorcraft that had cast cowl grills, but those grills extended the cast aluminum trim all the way around the corner of the nose bowl IN ONE PIECE, cast into the cowl grill piece.

When I saw that, my heart sank because I thought mine had been that way once, but someone cut them off flush with the air intake.

THEN I just saw Jeff's photo which looks the same as mine.

What I'd like to know is whether there were two or three different types of cast aluminum cowl grills, and whether SOME of them wrapped around the nose bowl and some ended at the fgront cowl air opening.

Anyone know this answer... Forrest??? Mr. Baker??? Mr. Peek??

I'm a Baker, but I'm not sure if I'm worthy of the Mr. I only know of 2 kinds of cast grills. There were some pre war cast grills with no center bar, and no wings. I had one of these at one time, but not a complete set. The other cast grill is like the one pictured at the top of the web page with the wing that wraps around for the chrome strips down the side. I've seen many of these with the wings either broke off or cut off with the center bar still in place. I've also seen them with the center bar cut out for better cooling, but you still have the bumps where the bar was. I think a lot of these airplanes had them removed to save weight especially if they were a working airplane. Tom

[Ragwing nut]

Re: What year is this Taylorcraft?

Forrest, speaking of DeLuxe airplanes, I have a question...

Mine is s/n 2387 delivered to a dealer in Los Angeles in November 1940. I believe it had a closed cowl as an optional upgrade at that time, but it was a Lycoming engine. I have the cast metal front cowl grills with the first section of the DeLuxe trim cast into the cowl grills, but none of the other trim parts. I have no "sissy strap" ring bolted anywhere near the upper door frame. It also does not have wheel pant brackets.

Can you figure out whether these are the original cowl grills that my airplane was built with? If they are, then I'll leave them on and search for the rest of the trim. If they are not original, then I have a couple of people who want them for a real antique restoration which mine is not.

Which type of trim system do you have? De Luxe's had a trim system like the postwars but has a specific trim tab elevator not like the postwars. If you have the flying tab, yours was a standard and did not originally have those grills. You would also need to have would doors, postwar style instrument panel, boot cowl, and windshield.

Mike

[VictorBravo]

Re: What year is this Taylorcraft?

>>>Which type of trim system do you have? De Luxe's had a trim system like the postwars but has a specific trim tab elevator not like the postwars. If you have the flying tab, yours was a standard and did not originally have those grills. You would also need to have would doors, postwar style instrument panel, boot cowl, and windshield. <<<

I have the separate all-flying trim tab, operated by a lever under the pilot's knees. I have fabric doors. The instrument panel has been re-done from a thick aluminum plate so it is not original. My cowling has cast aluminum grills with the center bar (tapered center bar like in Jeff's picture) and is cut off flush with the outboard edge of the cowl opening.

So Mike, if I'm reading you correctly, you're fairly sure that this airplane was not built with cast cowl grills and that there were no factory cast grills with the center bar not cut off at the outline of the grill?