It has been so hard basically just ripping apart all of the beautiful workmanship that I spent so many hours aggravating over and that I spent so many more house making sure everything was just "right" and looked perfect. The vast majority of it is *not* reusable; it just gets tossed on the junk pile. So depressing.
After the instruments were all out of the panel, it was time to remove the instrument panel. This didn't take too long. But that left the left and right instrument panel mounts which are riveted to the front turtle deck skin were another story. A fair number of the rivets attaching these mounts to the airframe and to the top skin are obscured by the fiberglass fairing around the windscreen or the actual windscreen itself. I agonized all week over how to remove the mounts without having to remove the windscreen or top skin. I just couldn't get myself to bust up the fairing and windscreen for the longest time. I spent way too much time trying to shave off the back of the top-obscured rivets. No matter how much I tried, I just couldn't get the mounts to come "loose" for some reason. As it turned out, the mounts are held somewhat captive by the top skin, over and above the rivets.
