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Hi everyone, I am looking at buying a 750 kit that was manufactured in 2013 but haven't been able to look at it since it's a two day drive away. So, were the kits in 2013 mostly pre drilled or no? I'm not sure about the timeline of these things with Zenith. Has anyone out there put a kit from that time together? Just would like to know as pre drilled would be a lot quicker/easier. It's for sale on this site as some of you might have seen.
Thanks!
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My kit was a very early 2014.(Feb) Some parts had pilot holes in one piece, and you had to drill into the matching part. Many of the parts you had to layout and drill yourself, especially the L angels. None of the parts were match drilled.
Sounds like the new kits are a piece of cake compared to the older ones.
Correction: The kit was and early 2016.
My 750 STOL kit was manufactured well before 2013 ... I think it was about ?2010 - it's serial number 7688. It was largely pilot-hole-drilled on one side of each pair of mating components and you had to drill the other component just as Jay mentioned (for example, the fuselage skins were pilot-hole-drilled and you had to use these as a guide and drill all the longerons), and, as he also mentioned, some things like L-angle stiffeners were not pre-drilled at all. Of course, after that, you had to then drill the pilot-hole-mated components to final hole size. It took me about 1000 hours to assemble the airframe including mounting the engine and wiring. I wouldn't hesitate to purchase a kit with pre-drilled pilot holes (especially if you enjoy the building process!), but if the price differential wasn't too bad, the later match-drilled, final hole size kit would definitely be worth it! I "think" I remember "somewhere" hearing it saves about ?200? hrs!
John
N750A
That helps a lot. Thanks!
I started building in 2013 and finished in 2021 buying kits as I went. The first (and only) final hole size match drilled parts I received was the firewall portion of the fuselage kit in 2016 so they must have been converting about then. The firewall went so quick it felt like cheating. I was sure I was forgetting something.
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