It took awhile, but eventually the impediments to continuing work on the service bulletin all melted away.
Christmas is over and done with, and departing with it are the stress and distractions incumbent in maintaining at least a patina of the societal demands of perpetual good cheer. I can easily and honestly maintain the Spirit of Christmas Past, it's the non-stop, full immersion Spirit of Christmas Present, which as we all know now runs from late September to sometime in early January, that taxes my patience. Fortunately my lad Cabot is easily pressed into service as my proxy.
I'm also completely over the shame and personal disappointment arising from my muddle-headed mis-drilling of a 3/8" hole as a 3/4" hole. Having now used the holes, I have to say it: had I not accidentally made these holes 3/4", I would have done it deliberately. Look how well they work! A 3/8" hole would have been far more difficult to use.
And as we can see in the upper right hand corner of this picture, perfectly sized caps were available to close the holes up when they're not in use. Oh, and the 6" long 1/4" bit was perfect for drilling through the center section. Any other bit would have been either painfully too short or too long.
It turned out that it was possible to use the countersink bit without removing it from its cage, but I wasn't really keen on having to hold it still while using it.
The replacement of the landing gear itself was a three hour ordeal performed with the able assistance of Pete and his son Warthog. It wasn't a great deal of fun. In fact, it was quite cold. I'd say the job took a good hour longer than it should have simply because our fingers were numb from the cold!
The brake lines still need to be reattached and bled, which is another job I'm not really looking forward to. But once that's done, I just have some paperwork to do in preparation for my inspection by the Feds.
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