Reinstalled firewall. During the paint episode, I rec'd the new donut suspension kit for the nosegear, so I had not previously finiahed mounting the nosewheel strut to the firewall. I also received new lower inner motor mounts to replace the too-short mounts supplied with the kit.
I marked the centerline of the new mounts, sighted them thru the existing #20 hole, held with one hand while lightly starting to drill thru the firewall hole. Removed the mounts and incrementally drilled on the bench up to #20. Reinstalled with cleco's. Next up is to hold in position while drilling from the underside for AN3 bolts.
Since the tow bar is an option for the kit, the nosewheel strut is not pre-drilled for the adapter spacer. Measured the locations (25mm) above the lower plate, and drilled 4 pilot holes, 90 deg apart. up-drilled the fore and aft holes to #12 to accomodate an AN3 bolt to hold the eventual spacer in place. The left and right pilot holes were then painfully up-drilled from #40 all the way to 1/2". Since it's steel I basically had to step-drill in either 1/64 or 1/32" steps. That's a lot of drill swaps.
Finally got the hole to 1/2", then inserted the stainless pin and drilled thru the forward hole to establish the hole thru the pin.
Lastly, spent quite a bit of time studying and trying to remove molex pins from the iCom A200 comm I acquired.
left lower mount - note cleco
holes in the process of being drilled
pin installed but not bolted in place; more work on strut still
