Door latches
TLDR
- Installed locks and latches on both doors
- Made a doubler for copilot side skin
Detail
Spent a couple of nights and full day today to install the locks and latches on both doors.
The parts I was given are nothing like the pictures/steps described in the build manual. Apparently this is a shared frustration by a lot of builders.
So I had to be creative during this part of the build. Part of the process was using my common sense, the other half was just looking at pictures shared by other builds.
The sequence
The way I did the install is this:
- Install the lock on the front. Lock it so it doesn’t move.
- Install the strike plate, alight the plate with the lock’s latch vertically.
- Drill the center hole and install rivnut on the strike plate.
- Install the latch holder on the strike plate.
- Install the brass rod on the strike plate.
That’s the front end. Once the front end is set, I connect the back end with the front end with the rod. THen:
- Adjust the back latch’s postion so it’s roughly the same as the front latch (in locked position)
- Install the back strike plate
- Drill center hole and install rivnut
- Install the latch holder and brass
The process was very time consuming because I didn’t want to drill a wrong hole on the canopy. I started with the copilot side. It was fine but a little too tight to lock. When I did the pilot side, I gave it a little bit more wiggle room so the locking motion was much more smooth.
Doubler for side skin
Another thing I did was that I made a doubler to cover a dent on the copilot side skin.
During shipping the inner wall skin on the copilot side had a 1 inch dent. I asked Sling what to do, they said it’s cosmetic so there is nothing to do. I confirmed it’s ok to make doubler, so I decided to do that for my own ease of mind.
The process was fairly easy compared to making door latches. I cut a 4 by 5 plate, deburred, cleaned and drilled some rivet holes following the rules on edge distance and rivet distance. Then just riveted it onto the skin.
