I think I learned my lesson with these Craigslist planes LOL. They're usually more trouble than they're worth. I did get lucky with the very first one I bought, the Thunder Tiger 40 trainer. All it needed was new batteries and getting the engine freed of gunk. Sadly that one met its demise when I flew it into a tree on a downwind landing leg :-)

Buying from on line places is one of the big mistakes too many people do. If your looking for used planes then RC swap meets are a good place to go. Couple weeks ago one of the local clubs had one and we saw a ton of new and used planes and everything else needed. I even bought what I thought was a parts engine I needed to repair one of my good ones. Turned out the parts engine was just taken apart and the repair needed was never finished, just needs new bearings. I will just finish this repair and have another good engine. Still need a part for the one I want to fix though.
The best place to buy a used plane is at the field. You can inspect it and see it fly. If your a known pilot and trusted, sellers will even let you fly the plane, just not take off and land it. You can see what servos are in the plane and hear and see the engine run.
The plane I'm setting up now is a sought after ARF that was discontinued, a very good engine and OK servos. By OK they aren't high end digital servos but they aren't junk, good enough for a 60 size plane like this one. Someone will get a pretty good deal with this one and I will have the cash to build my next plane.

Craigslist is perfectly fine for buying airplanes. I've bought more there than anywhere else. But like with everything else, you must know what you are looking at and know the difference between RTF, a simple fix up/clean up job, and a basket case. I'd call you plane just slightly more than a fix up/clean up job, but it's still considerably less work than building an ARF would have been. I look at a potential buy and start calculating cost and time in my head to get it airworthy. If those exceed the price I can buy a RTF used plane for, I'll make an offer based on the used value of the engine and servos. Sometimes the seller gets offended, and sometimes he accepts. The very best way to get good bargains is to buy a large lot from someone who has decided to get out of the hobby. If you'll save up $500-$600 and wait, you'll see an ad eventually. With those big purchases, you may wind up throwing away one out of 5 airplanes, but you'll also probably resell one or two and get half of your money back. But the best part is that there is usually a big box of assorted parts and accessories that comes with the planes. I once paid $150 for 3 planes and a box of stuff. I dumpstered one airframe immediately, but what I didn't need from the box of stuff recouped $125 on Ebay. The rest I fixed up and flew until I crashed one and traded the other for a huge box of NIB fishing lures (probably $150 worth). So it pays to scan the ads on Craigslist, but you have to educate yourself on what a good buy actually looks like.

I am not sure why the threaded rod should not work . I think it will just thread into the yellow push rod and then go from there. Is that not how it was done before ? Every body has different ideas . I hope I have not miss lead you .

In 8 or 10 years you may be able to do as Jester does but about two years ago a fellow thought he was going to make a big killing by becoming an RC picker. He ended up with his garage full of stuff, planes, engines electronics then posted photos and the items here on RCU. He got laughed off the site with all the complete waste of money crap he ended up with. NOthing in his pile of junk was anything anyone would want today.
I bought an estate sale a couple years back and it was a huge score. ARFs new in box, engines, kits, radios and chargers. Most of it was good and sold quickly. It wasn't an on line deal, I got to see everything and look in the boxes. The ARF I'm working on now was one of the items and my partner kept it but never did anything with it so I just got it a couple weeks ago. Other then one last kit my partner kept all the stuff was gone in days. I want that kit but he is hanging onto it.
It takes a lot of years to know what you are looking at and you can't look at stuff on line. I know too many people that sell on line, some are good to deal with, others, not so much.

Just out of curiosity what kind of stuff did the "RC picker" have.

AllModes! I want you to save some money up for your purchase of a NIB (New In the Box) ARF. But until then, lets get that TT Trainer setup correctly. About 8 years ago, I bought a Tower Hobbies 40 Trainer for $70 from Tower. A value I couldn't resist. If you watch the sales, eventually you will run into something new that is a good bargain. I personally feel that I prefer my assembly procedures (50 years of building model airplanes) over someone who has never built a model airplane. Now I understand you might not have 50 years of experience, but with todays ARFs and good manuals, if one pays attention to detail in the manual, you should end up with a reasonably good airplane. At least some "knucklehead" didn't assemble it.

I need to buy a Dremel tool first to cut out the rib to center the servo like you guys said. More money to spend......

Tom is this your plane for sale? It's nice.

http://chicago.craigslist.org/wcl/tag/5036830787.html

Well, they make saw blades for Exacto knifes, I have a few and they are used a lot. I double them for when I cut ply or balsa that has been epoxied together.
That RC picker had about everything you could think of, just nothing usable. Maybe someone remembers the thread title and will post it? At first it was sad but got funny as he was trying to give the hard sell on a lot of junk. Never saw him back again but I will see if I can locate the thread with the photos. He knew less then nothing about RC but gave it a shot.
I did have one friend that was in a couple of my clubs that couldn't fly or build but he was a computer geek. He scarfed up all kinds of complete crap. Old broken planes but with classic names and was making a killing selling it on line.
There are a lot of reasons I would never buy anything on line. Example, once a friend of mine gave me a nice looking Bridi Kaos, the guy was a master builder and the plane looked great. He used it to break in engines so the fire wall had about 12 holes drilled into it. That's not a big deal, I filled them with wood dowels and epoxy. The big problem was the nose was fuel soaked. All went well until I had a hard landing and the nose fell off just in front of the wing.
Being an old builder I cleaned up the fuel soak and repaired the nose. If you got something like that on line and you couldn't see the problem it would have been a junker to you and not everyone could repair it. There were a lot of tricks I had to do.
Just a couple points of why you shouldn't buy on line. Even engines, you can't hear if the bearings are shot or not and an engine may need a rebuild before you ever can use it.

OK, that should be an easy purchase. Check Ebay, Amazon, even Craigslist and Harbor Freight. $30-$40 should be an easy find. For a long time I didn't have a Dremel, in '87 I bought my first. Now I wouldn't be without one. I now have 3. But Dremels are like having a pair of pliers, you really need one if you don't have one. I love it just for cutting wire or bolts or shaping and carving cleanly. Here's a tip when using a Dremel. They're like microwaves ovens, they work really fast. So go slow when using one.

No, that's not me. but for $175, I would have to admit, that looks interesting. The engine alone if in good condition is probably worth $125. Be careful.

Is this the correct Dremel for cutting out that wing rib?

http://chicago.craigslist.org/nch/tls/5021516833.html

Yes that should work fine with a small sanding drum. As long as it works.

You can cut out the wing rib with your hobby knife and some elbow grease. The Dremel will make it easier, but the knife will work.

I do remember Mr. Picker. He thought RC guys had money to burn and would pay 90% of retail for old airplanes. He bought out several full collections before realizing how cheap most of us are.

I only buy big lots when the price is good enough that I know I could recoup the investment on about half of the collection. Those buys don't come up often, but when they do I try to have some money on hand.

towerhobbies.com. Everything is new, usually comes with a manual, guaranteed, and you only buy what you need. How does that sound for a bargain?

That will be the way I will most likely go with a next plane. I could not find any 2-56 rods longer than 12 inches so I ordered them off of ebay. I wasn't paying $40 for 28 of them from Tower. That's overkill, I don't understand why they can't sell them in smaller amounts. Just waiting for all the goods to come in so I can finally finish this headache. Hopefully I won't screw anything up and it will go smoothly.

I got a hold of some rods today so here is the "progress" I made. I make the clevis connections in back of the plane and ran the rods to the servo area. So while I am waiting for the bending tool and L quick connects to arrive let's see if we can figure this puzzle out. Here is the criteria that has to be met when making these connections to the servos.

1) Servo arms can not "dual" each other, LOL

2) Servo arms can not hit sidewall of fuselage.

3) Wheel and rudder rods must connect to common servo despite being on opposite sides of fuselage.

4) Wheel must turn in same direction as rudder.

5) Height clearance must be met in order to put wing on

Here is a picture showing which rods control what function.

It's hard to tell which way is front and back. Let me just say, if you have to switch positions of the servos to make it "cleaner', then do it. It should all be logical without any rods crossing any other rods. Remember, you can always reverse a servo direction to make sense. Wish you had a manual, usually in the manual they steer the modeler in a sensible way. Does that make sense?

<--------------Rear of plane

If you can replace that servo arm on the elevator servo with a lighter one it will help give you more room The same style as the other two only it will only need an arm on the one side so just snip the other side off . The nose wheel rod will need to be straightend out or replaced . To keep the servo arms from rubbing on the sides of the plane cut a bit off and use a hole closer to the servo . I think your steering rod will come off the oposit side of the servo from the rudder . I looked at some pics that were posted and it looked like both your rudder and nose wheel arms were on the left side so if thats the case I think the rods need to be on oposit sides.. I could be wrong . It was hard to tell by the pics .

If you will switch sides with the elevator and rudder rods you will make life a lot easier on yourself. The original builder likely got that wrong, so now you can correct it. If you do that, getting it all working right will be a simple matter of moving the double servo arm to the other side, then setting up the elevator arm to point outwards toward the fuselage side instead of inwards toward the other servo. If you have smaller servo arms use them, but if not just cut that one down to make it fit. There's no such thing as a servo arm that's too strong, after all. I know it will take some time to get the switch done, but that's the right fix for your problem and the only way you can get straight shots to all of your controls and no chance of the servos interfering with each other.

What is the best way to fill holes in an engine mount? Epoxy? Can the new engine mounting screws be driven into the epoxy?

Wood dowels the size of the holes, epoxy them in then cut flush with the fire wall. Dowels can be bought in most hardware stores.

You suggesting filling holes in a firewall or actual engine mount?

Actual engine mount. There was a different engine mounted and now I need to put a different engine in and the holes don't align.