Canopy and Doors

I have QB with canopy factory installed. However, there is still some tricky work to do on the door composites, so I removed them to work on. The main door latch mechanism has a complex shape composite fibreglass cover over it. This needs to be cut and machined to fit the door lever and latches. It’s a firm snap-on fit plus two M4 rivnuts. It took quite a bit of work (2 hours per door) with the Dremmel and filing the mouldings to get a nice fit. Worth spending some time on. It’s very visible and used every flight. I also adjusted the latch mechanism to run smoothly and then added some medium strength Loctite to the connecting rod and latch pivot nut. The KAI shows an optional adjustment hole for the two main pivot points (to enable tightening them up if they become loose). Having seen how tricky it is to get this moulding on and off, I don’t want to have to reopen it after it’s painted, for sure it will get very scratched. So I added the adjustment holes. Following info in case, I need to remove the mouldings in future. Here’s the way I did it. Remove 2 x M4 button head screws, then. Bent the strike plates per instructions. Not clear why they are labelled right and left they seem identical. KAI says shiny side inwards, but my plates were identical on both sides.

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