Those that saw me at FSWeekend 2014 will remember that I was very impressed with FlybyCockpit’s new products. In particular, Vitor’s liners were exceptional. Knowing Vitor for many years, he made me a fantastic offer but we both agreed there was no way of knowing if his liners would fit my shell so I waved off.

Still, the bug had bitten me and I was on the hunt for liners. If you’ve patiently followed my build you probably remember I bought my shell from a builder in South Africa. After showing pictures it was very similar to the FDS shell, so I made the assumption that the measurements would be similar so the FDS liners would be ideal.

Armed with the will to buy and the understanding that I was taking a huge leap, not really knowing they would fit, I ordered the liners from Peter Cos at FDS and they were promptly delivered along with my MIP. This would be the beginning of a love/hate relationship with the liners that would last two weeks.

To begin, I quickly determined that my shell was about two inches shorter in height than the FDS shell the liners were made for. I was able to solve this problem by inserting 2 x 4’s under the lower lip of the shell all the way around.

I also determined that the shell was also about three inches shorter front to back. This was a more serious issue and was the result of all the time. It meant that I would need to actually trim the liners which is an irreversible commitment. It also meant that I would need to measure many times before cutting.

Through the course of installing the liners I ended up having to trim them for length, which came out much better than I thought.

I had to modify each of the panels to fit but the end result was much better than I thought. Still some tweaking to do as I put everything back in the shell but I am very happy with the result.

I’ve cut out the openings for the oxy panels, and I bought some DIN dash pockets for automobile dashes as side liner pockets and painted them. I also mounted my OC tiller.

The clipboards are two clipboards I bought from Officemax three years ago for this purpose. I cut them down to size and left them clear so I can put things under the plastic for reference.

I ended up fashioning brackets out of left over aluminum strips I had in order to mount the roof panels. I’ll mount those once I run the speaker wires.

Still working on this, so stay tuned!