I did some more work today on the map box door. This desire of mine to have a door that fits flush with the instrument panel sure has consumed a lot of hours, but I wouldn't have been happy with myself if I didn't give it a go, and it's turning out pretty good.
The door is actually installed independantly to the map box, and is rivetted direct to the inside face of the instrument panel. I had to make up a spacer of a very specific thickness so that the door closes exactly flush.
For now I'm holding off rivetting the map box in place until the latch that I ordered turns up. I suspect I'll need to make some small mods to the aluminium angle that runs across the top of the box opening, and that will best be done while I can still remove it.
Also today I added a RJ45 com port extension for the VP-X. Although I don't expect to be plugging my laptop into the VP-X very often, when I do I'm sure I'll be very glad that I added this simple modification.
The map box door fits nice and flush with the panel
