I heard from the factory that my Engine, Firewall Forward Kit, and Upholstery is on it's way. It's a pretty big and heavy mix of items, so they had to put them in a container and on a boat - 6-8 weeks delivery time... ugh. Looks like a September timeframe for delivery with an order that I put in January.
So I'm doing a mix of odds and ends, torquing bolts, kicking tires, etc..
Now that the landing gear strut is in place, I went ahead and torqued the bolts in place. It was a bit difficult since I didn’t have any metric wrench that fit an M12 bolt. Luckily, vice grip pliers were strong enough to hold and get the required torque value.
I decided to give the canopy doors another shot. To get the lock mechanism to fit flush, I had to shave off a bit of the canopy resin with a dremel. The real challenge was trying to get the aluminum rod to fit inside the canopy. The curvature of the canopy is somewhat unique to each door. I was able to get one door done pretty easily with only a few slight bends. I used a table vice to grip the bar and get the bend where I wanted. However, the second door I bend the rod in different directions to try to fit the canopy curvature, it started to look a bit like spaghetti. I was able to finally get it to fit, but the angle of the cut that fits the door latch was off by about 30 degrees. Doh! I’ll have to straighten it out and give it another shot later.. I was feeling up for a challenge.. and man, did I get it.
I started working on the canopy door gas struts and the latches. There aren't any published instructions out there for the TSi, yet, but I was able to get a 'Work in Progress' instruction set from the factory to help move things along. First problem I ran into is that when I drilled holes through the support notches for the gas struts, I didn't drill them at the smallest point. I was thinking I'd want the hole to be a bit closer to the frame for additional support, however the supplied bolts are a bit too small. Not a big deal, but I'll aim the drill a bit differently on the other side. Drilling through the material, it is quite solid. I moved on to try to figure out the latch system. I had to size up the hole for the door handle and drill the two holes on either side to secure it in place. However, it seems the larger hole isn't exactly centered, so the bracket on the back side was catching on the interior frame. I'll just need to shave away a quarter inch to get it to fit snug. I was moving to assemble other parts, but I was missing some important tension pins. I asked the factory and confirmed the size, 3 x 10mm. I was able to source some at Lowes, but will need to shave down to length once inserted. |
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