Thanks to all who responded to my 'Day One' post... Day Two was spent doing the nose-gear strut & buying some wood/incidentals... In the process, I pretty much confirmed what you all told me... Stock main gear can't be converted, it has to be replaced, as the Diehl nose-wheel is too tall to work with stock gear - reversing doesn't add enough height....
That means the plane stays a tail-dragger for now,, simply so I can move it around while working on everything else, and saving the landing gear work for next trip... I'll also need a new prop (or repair of the existing one - a 53x(something) with cracking on one tip), and a new (Crosspipe-less) exhaust (probably fabricated from the cut-up remains of the old one)... Won't be able to do any of that this time... 'Everything else' is solid-foam core patches & re-glassing that delaminated elevator... Sanding away cracked/chipped paint areas & touching up (a full repaint will wait until I get the plane home - not a safety-of-flight issue. I'm mainly worried about paint-chipping because it could be hiding faults in the glass) Fixing the hole torn in the side of the rudder... Making a new instrument panel (Steam gauge holes & vinyl out, EFIS monitor in (the CPU is separate, and will be mounted to the turtledeck), and less panel in the knee area)... And various other fixes (that lawnmower-throttle elevator trim system)... I'm keeping the gokart/dunebuggy seats - there's only about 3" from the seat-surface to the floor, and there's another crossmember just like the one my knees hit up front, right behind the seat-backs - so sitting further back isn't going to work. The one reason I might have changed them - trying to save the stock main gear - is out of the picture now.
