One important job that I had been putting off for far too long was the seal around the shock struts and the belly pan. Since the engine is on, I needed to resolve this and I’m glad I did. The paint came off in sheets, without much resistance! I have no idea why, but I just shot straight topcoat on an old alodined surface. No scuffing, no priming…huge mistake that I was very grateful to find! I must have thought the alodine prep was sufficient, but the Superflite manual was very specific as to how to prepare metal surfaces and apparently I ignored them! I looked back in my logs and all the other panels were done with prep and primer except for these. Maybe I was thinking the alodine was enough. Anyway, I cleaned the panels and started in with the plan on finishing them right.
