Repair of the roller on the rear canopy turned out quite well, it followed the standard procedure advised from the factory in Poland via Wolfgang, our “agent” in Dresden.

We trial fitted the rear conopy and measured the amount of bending it is subject to when opened fully – there is a 70mm reduction in track spacing from the closed to the opened position.

We also refurbished the front canopy stay system, which comprises two pulleys and a 2 mm stainless steel wire rope joined to a 4 mm shock cord. It necessitated the removal of the rear instrument panel to gain access to the roller assemblies.

(pic to be added)

An inspection of the front panel cowl revealed that the reason the rubber surround didn’t seem to fit properly was that a chunk of thin fibreglass had been broken.

The repair necessitated fabrication of a timber mold which was covered with plastic tape and coated with a thin oil film for release of the fibreglass layup. The edges of the repair area was scarfed about 10:1 and the layup comprised 3 staggered strips of 200 gms twill.

The repair has been trimmed and is awaiting a matt black paint job.

The front canopy stay arrangement now needed the rear panel moved down about 20 mm on the plywood front seat back to clear the cabling. After some mucking around and trying to match-drill mostly misformed holes, we decided to make a new back out of a sheet of 7 mm plywood, identical to the one discarded. I also machined a set of Delrin cup washers to spread the loads of the attachment screws properly.

Laurie re-fitted the skid and screwed on a few dozen wood screws to attach the new blue fabric skic fairing, together with blue lacing. The picture below doesn’t do the colours justice, it really looks classy.