Review on Werner Flipper Replacement Kit 29-1 - Enhance Your Extension Ladder with High-Quality Parts by Robert Larris

I finally decided to restore my father's old cellar 3520 from the 70's or 80's. One of the flaps broke many years ago and was too short to be effective and the other flap was damaged at the tip but still intact enough to determine its original length, but due to the profile it still caught occasionally crossbar. The flaps in this set are slightly shorter than the originals, but their profile is slightly different. The point is, they work! The hardware that came with it other than the valves didn't fit my ladder but gave me an idea of what parts to buy. I went to my local hardware store and bought 1 1/4" x 1/4" stainless steel bolts, stainless steel locknuts and 8 nylon washers. The washers included in the kit were twice the thickness of normal nylon washers and actually look like two washers fused together. Removing the old washers is no trivial task and requires removing the ladder locks, which are first held in place by a special hex head screw. on one side and a nut on the other. Although they were a little rusty, they fell apart and I was able to reuse them. The spring is caught by the screw so be careful not to lose the spring and be careful of its orientation. The spring in this kit is different and I had to reuse the original springs. After the locks were removed, I drilled out the rivets holding the flaps in place. The rivets for my ladder were larger than the screws that came with it, so I had to get bigger screws to hold them in the groove. The need for larger screws almost meant drilling out the entire flaps. Knowing the flaps were slightly shorter than the original, I focused on enlarging the holes with 4 drills and applying pressure to the back. I'm not sure how successful I was because the plastic is pretty hard. It's easy to overtighten the flaps on the ladder lock and warp the plastic, so I unscrewed the locking nuts until the plastic no longer looked warped and you also like the flaps to "pop" slightly. Installing the ladder locks is a bit tricky as you need to control the spring by aligning the ladder lock and inserting the bolt. Perhaps it would be possible to drill out the wing rivets while the stair locks are still attached to the stair. If I knew the stair locks would be difficult to restore I would consider leaving them on if possible. For ten bucks it's nice to have a properly working ladder again.