After fixing the tab length and the mounting hole position as described in "An Oaf's Story", I trimmed the fuselage a bit so the gear strut would fit, and then positioned the gear on 1/4" rods through the the bulkheads and the tabs. I made and fitted the metal bulkhead mounting plates, and installed them with flox and screws.
Next, I laboriously drilled out the holes in the strut mounting tabs with a 3/4" c'bore, and then drilled out the bulkheads and metal mounting plates with a 5/8" counterbore, using the 12" long 1/4" drill as a pilot in both cases. Brock had made the MKMG-4 bushings in the MKMGA tubes too long, so I machined them to the correct length, and then fit everything together on the studs in the fuselage. I floxed the MKMG-4 bushings into the bulkheads and mounting plates, and floxed the MKMGA's into the mounting tabs, making sure that the gear was level and positioned correctly. You can see the flox filling the original 1/4" drilled holes in the tabs towards the top:
The last step involved cutting foam to fit around the MKMGA's, and then glassing 2 BID over the MKMGA's onto the strut, as well as glassing 2 BID over the large washers on the outside faces of the mounting tabs. After trimming and sanding these layups, the strut mounting tabs were done.
At this point, the strut fits into the fuselage with essentially NO fore-aft play at all (well, maybe a COUPLE of thousandths.
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[Zeitlin's Cozy MKIV Information]
[Zeitlin's Cozy MKIV Logbook] [Cozy MKIV Information]
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