Brief Description: Fitting new Shock Struts Part 1
I went ahead and ordered the newer "round" shock struts from Mark G. and they came in the other day. Time to get them fit up. Since my fuselage is scratch built, Mark had the factory leave the ends unfinished so I could fit them to my fuselage. The first step is to level up the fuselage and install the landing gear. I should have measured the “old” struts and made them the same length but I had already mailed them back to Mark. I put the landing gear into the jig that I had saved when I first installed and welded in the main landing gear fittings. What was interesting is that I never drilled out the main fittings to fit the main gear bolt sizes! This will take some time to get right. It posed some VERY interesting challenges as the ¼ in holes are parallel to the longerons. The holes were used for the primary welding but are not good when it comes to the final assembly! I had to get real creative so as not to enlarge the holes too big or not in line. I had to come in from the front as the longeron takes a bend toward the fuselage and that allowed me to use a drill, then reamer. Finally got it…
