Today I started putting the door together.
I just received a new piece of Lexan for the door. I had scratched the original piece many months ago and just recently ordered a new one.
The first thing I did today was cut the one aluminum hinge Rans supplied into three. I spent some time filing down the sharp edges and corners.
I also created new hinge pins. The hinge came with a aluminum pin but Rans supplied a steel pin to be put in it's place. The steel pin is slightly larger in diameter and fits very snuggly in the hinge. To ease the assembly, I will use the existing aluminum pin until the final assembly.
I started mounting the hinges to the Door Frame Hinge Tube. The tube has a slight bend about 5" from the top. This is intended to match up with the slight curve in the door frame. As you can see in the photo below, I clamped the tube flat on the table so the bend points towards the inside of the table. Mounting the hinges on the upward facing surface will allow the bend to point inwards when attached to the plane.
Once the hinges were riveted in to place, I drilled the holes for the door Lexan.
I then mounted the mating hinge plates to the windshield tube of the plane. The instructions indicate the hinges should be placed so they are resting against the edge of the Lexan. Since the Lexan edge of the windshield has a slight spiral up the windshield tube, the hinges are not in an ideal, straight line. This is causing problems when I attempt to connect the hinges together. I should have taken this spiral into account when I attached the hinges to the Door Frame Hinge Tube. I may need to purchase a new Door Frame Hinge Tube and re-attach the hinges with a matching spiral.
