Freshening up the panel

[rangermb]

I have a 77J with good cosmetics, except for the panel and yokes. I'm looking at powder coating the yokes when the weather breaks and would also like to do something for the panel. The panel looks like it is covered with some sort of material (maybe leather or nauga skin). I'd like to take it off and clean it up. There are four screws around each instrument. My question is...If I remove all those screws, will the panel come off like my old Cherokee, or am I risking a lot of expensive boxes coming loose?

[Cruiser]

Those screws hold the instruments to the panel, pretty sure you need to remove all the instruments then remove the panel mounts, some models had isolator mounts between the panel and the frame, those can get weak and sag. 

 

What do you intend to do to "clean up" 

[rangermb]

It looks like a previous owner tried to paint over the covering. I was going to get it out of the plane so I could give it a good cleaning and see what the best way forward would be.

[dougmilam]

Had my yokes powder coated 4 years ago and they are holding up well.

[Cruiser]

if you are putting that much effort into the project, I would look for a new laser cut panel to replace the current one. Lots of avionics shops make these up when upgrading.

[Marauder]

I have a 77J with good cosmetics, except for the panel and yokes. I'm looking at powder coating the yokes when the weather breaks and would also like to do something for the panel. The panel looks like it is covered with some sort of material (maybe leather or nauga skin). I'd like to take it off and clean it up. There are four screws around each instrument. My question is...If I remove all those screws, will the panel come off like my old Cherokee, or am I risking a lot of expensive boxes coming loose?

I have the same cover material on the left side of my 1975 F. Your panel will look very similar to mine. I am removing it this year when I have the left side of the panel rebuilt. You will have a lot of work ahead to pull everything out of the panel to remove it. Once the switches and instruments are removed, there are insulator mounts that are removed to take the panel out. If you look at my picture gallery in my profile, there is a picture with the left side apart. I kick myself in the butt for not having the panel rebuilt when it was apart. The right side was rebuilt last year. There are pictures of that as well. It should give you some ideas of what can be done. I'm looking to paint all of it a lighter color this year. Sent using Tapatalk