The stop brackets for the rudder pedals needed a little more rework (thanks, Yeol, for grinding those down). SInce I had the control rods and everything else with the rudders off to get to the brackets, I figured it would be a good time to put the leather boots in place from the cockpit, I mean flight deck, into the engine compartment.

That was a lot harder than it should have been. The leather, like all the fiberglass, was not pre-punched with the hole locations. Not a problem, I just put an awl through them and we were good to go. But, because of the sides already up in the quickbuild kit where the steering control rods pass through, not only was it hard to get clearance (needed a manual rivet puller), but I had to form the aluminum boot backers (I'm sure they have a better name) under the sides. Not easy when there are Clecos holding the leather in place. But, by pulling some off one at a time and putting them through on the firewall side, I was able to get it held into place using the holes I had already put in the leather. For the record, I did try gluing the leather to the backer, but it didn't hold. {Note added later - with all my great planning, it turns out I installed the boots backwards. The leather should be inside the plane, not inside the engine compartment}

Once the boots and their backers were Cleco'd in place, I needed to rivet them. Most of the holes were relatively clear, but Clecos are smaller in diameter than the rivets and there were some holes that needed to be drilled out. I figure that's a rounder hole in the leather, too, so it was all good.

Once that was done, it was relatively straightforward to attach the control rods. Not easy, because getting eyebolts into the slots has been tough for every control rod, but at least there was nothing to figure out. It just took brute force and a little luck.

I noticed that the rudder pedals were bottoming out on each other rather than the stops and was trying to figure out what was going on. Then I remembered there are TWO pushrods for adjusting the way the front wheel points relative to how even the rudder pedals are. I had them both too long, so when I shortened them both the same amount, the orientation stayed the same and the stops were what stopped the pedals rather than the rudder pedal bar stopping the pedals.