Nose gear

The front nose gear was assembled.  The spacers on each side of the axle bolt that came with our kit were too short (possibly sized for the Escapade, and not the Highlander wheel).  New spacers were fabricated to fit our nose wheel, and the lengths were 2 1/4" on one side, and 2 7/16" on the other side.  With these new spacers, the fork legs were held tightly against the spacers, which were in turn held tight against the wheel bearing as required.

Nose wheel with new spacers

The nose wheel fork assembly was then fitted onto the shaft of the nose gear leg.  The friction bushing (part F-3590.3) that was supplied with the kit was previously found to have an opening that was too small, but a new part was quickly obtained (thanks Amazon), and fit perfectly.  The nut had to be tightened to the point where it took at least 20 lbs of force to move the fork assembly.  This was measured (as recommended per the manual) with a scale attached to the fork near the axle.   Once 20lbs was achieved, the nut was rotated just far enough to get the hole in the nut to line up for a cotter pin.  We remeasured the force again to see exactly how many lbs of force were then required to move the wheel, and it came out a bit over 23 lbs.

Point where fork just begins to rotate (20 lbs, 2 oz)

Point where fork rotates after nut aligned and cotter pin attached (23 lbs, 13 oz)

Once the nose gear was attached, the back of the plane was raised slightly with the rear rotisserie point so that the airplane was sitting on all 3 wheels  (A rear attach point is still currently needed because the plane is tail-heavy without an engine).  Hours: 2

Image of Fuselage sitting for 1st time on 3 wheels