Canopy release & Mapbox

Since my last post, I finished the canopy latch mechanism. I had to trim a bit more of the release bellcrank block, as the pins were getting stuck on the edge.

That helped, now the bellcrank was turning freely.

To make room for the bolt that attaches the lever arm to the bellcrank, I had to make this opening below the bellcrank block.

Tonight I continued with the mapbox installation. It would have been much easier to prepare this earlier, but I only just received the mapbox kit with some other parts I ordered from Van’s a few weeks ago. The mapbox is deeper than the distance between the instrument panel and subpanel, so it has to go through the subpanel.
First I had to trim a bit of the right forward deck, to make room for the mapbox.

Then I cut a piece of cardboard to size, to mark the subpanel hole…

Trimmed! It took a while to get it just right, but I’m pretty pleased with the result so far. 🙂

The mapbox temporary installed, next up is to make support angles, and cut the instrument panel opening.