Today I continued my hardware patrol. I have been through the entire fuselage and the control stick and have replaced and/or noted what I’ll need to get to continue. I can definitely justify the expense of a drilling guide since I have lots of bolts that are good candidates for drilling for cotter keys.
I changed the bolt on the trim wheel to one with a hole in the shank and feel much better about it. I removed the doors since the hinge bolts were a little bit too short. Rather than just swapping the bolts I just took the doors all the way off so that I could get in and out easier. I made a few bolt changes on the elevator and flap controls to account for length and/or drilled bolts. I also went through the landing gear bolts and installed the ones with the correct grip length, now that I know how to do that. I didn’t have the proper drilled bolts on hand but I’ll have the gear off several other times and can replace them next time.
