Cessna 172 panel modification by Direct Avionics
As you can see, this instrument panel is a mix of old and older instruments. The instruments are also arranged in a rather haphazard manner. Why did they do this you may ask? Well the only explanation I can come up with is that the older “AN” style gyros were so big that they only fit along the top row and everything else went wherever there was room. With modern gyros such as the RC Allens we used here, we were able to rearrange everything in to a standard layout. In order to facilitate the relocation of the instruments we fabricated a new instrument panel from .060” aluminum painted flat black. With the elimination of the plastic overlay this really “modernized” the look of this 1959 Cessna 172.

The aircraft also had a single red light mounted in the overhead to illuminate the instruments, switches and panels. We installed a dual transistor, dual potentiometer lighting system utilizing a combination of wedge lights for the instruments and post lights for switch and engine instrument illumination. It looks like a 747 when lit up at night.

As for the avionics, we removed the existing KX-170B, glideslope receiver and indicator and installed a Garmin AT SL-30 com/nav, an MD-200 nav indicator, PS Engineering PM3000 stereo intercom, dual avionics master switch system and replaced all the fuses with pull type circuit breakers. With a Garmin GPSMap 196 portable GPS mounted to the yoke, this is a great VFR aircraft!