Brief Description: Assembly of Gear Legs to Bulkhead
Spread over 3 separate days with assistance from Bruce and Yan at various times this series of tasks was a lot of one step forward, two steps back and is still not complete. If I was do another build I could probably breeze through this section as the parts are all in the kit and the instructions are generally correct. However, the photos are not all that clear and 'generally' is a long way from 'perfectly' in preventing missteps. When I say all the parts are provided I am giving PA the benefit of the doubt that they supplied all the 1/8"x1/2" ID x1" OD plastic spacerrs part #3210-004 required. I was basically out of them and assumed I had mistakenly used them earlier in the build when smaller ID washers were called for. A couple of hangar rats were good enough to drill and ream out some smaller ID ones for this step. In step 8.1 a 1/8" overhang is specified for the Gear Leg bushing but this is actually 1/4", just as in step 7.1. The two pairs of Retraction Angles are labeled 'right' and 'left' - a lot of time was wasted trying to interpret the instructions to get them installed correctly... step 9.1 refers to 'right' when I think it means 'left' but am still not sure and not going to waste any more time thinking about this. The blurry photos in the manual don't help either. This step also refers to a 1/2" ID plastic spacer when it means 3/8" (part #3210-005 is correct though) - maybe this is how I ran out proper ID spacers before! The only Switch Pads that came with my kit are part #3230-090 not the #3230-069 called for in step 9.1. Mine worked just fine so are probably hot off the design press. I am now stymied at this step because my Electric Gear Actuators are fully retracted such that the linkage cannot be connected. Have to get power on. Update 25 May 2015 - OK let's be honest, the photos are pathetically poor and misleading in the manual. The actuators are actually upside down in these photos as I was finally to discover 22 days later!
