I powder coated all the latch components for the doors, only to find that I needed to remove some material from the latch handles to avoid interference when they are operated and the door is opened.
On the pilots side I removed as much material as possible without getting into the washers and hardware that hold the rear latch rod in place. On the copilots side I barely needed to remove any material.
I was able to use the spacer ring on the pilots side as specified at 3/8" and this resulted in a nice positive latching action. The copilots side required this spacer to be reduced to 1/4" for the same action.
On the outside handles, I found that the brass insert nut was longer than the wall thickness of the plastic handle. I sanded this down to allow it to seat fully.
I was intending to install the gas lift struts to hold the doors open, but I found that without the wings in place the struts opened the doors to the point where they would bind and damage the paint, so I just left them off for the time being.
Getting the doors on is an exciting day. For the first time I get to see if all the colors in my paint job line up, and it is starting to look more and more like an airplane that is lonely for wings...
