Today - I realized that I was at an impass as I have not yet fabricated nor purchased from Zenith the Landing Gear welded part that is necessary to set the side skin in its proper location on the forward fuselage. I did not have the necessary 4130 Steel plate stock required to fabricate the part so I need to improvise in order to continue to advance on the fuselage. To do so I concluded that - at this stage - the correct material part was not a necessity and a correctly measured and assembled part of any material could serve as a "temporary JIG" to allow me to proceed. With that thought - I fabricated a landing gear attachment for each side out of 5051 -.080 Aluminum scraps that I have left from my Bus Converion project of several years ago. A picture of one of them is below (I didn't worry about the vise markes on it as it's only a tempory jig). All measurements are precise, however, and as called out on the plans. The second pic shows the part in-place on the pilot side.
From there I positioned that part and proceeded to then add the vertical "L's" and drill and cleco as called out in the construction manual.
