I was feeling pretty uninspired to work on the plane since I still don't have joystick assemblies. When I was down at Livermore airport for an EAA meeting, I went to see Yeol, another Sling builder, and his build. I am *so* glad I did! While I was there, I saw a bunch of other things I could work on without the joystick assemblies. There is a lot I could do with the rest of the control rods and ventilation system. Acting on a tip from Yeol, I chose a couple of sacrificial right handed and left handed eyebolts for the pushrods and tried to screw them all the way in and out. It was not easy! I guess in the manufacturing process, either the alodine or the riveting, the threads in the pushrods got messed up. I ended up spending about 2 hours with some screwdrivers in the eyebolt for leverage and WD-40 on the threads to try to help "cut" through. I also discovered that putting a jam nut on the thread helped get the screw's thread back in somewhat reasonable shape. I put the nut all the way towards the "eye" part of the eyebolt, then unscrewed it over the damaged screw threads to undamage them. OK, nothing exciting, but it was forward progress, and that is exciting in and of itself!