Zenith CH 750 CruZer Build...Door Hinge Mod's and more updates.

Added: 2026-05-21

[00:00:00]Hey, welcome back to getting in the game. If you're new to the channel, this is not a build really a build thing now.

[00:00:06]It's It's warped into ideas and what I'm doing to the plane on this 750 Cruiser build. And it's going to be informational as far as making decisions down the road for you guys. You can watch and go, "I would never do that to my plane." Or you can go, "Oh, cool.

[00:00:24]Well, glad he told me about building something a certain way."

[00:00:28]Cuz I've ran into it already.

[00:00:30]If you If you want to see more about the seat and where I'm at on the doors and of course the cowl panels all in.

[00:00:38]Yeah, stick around.

[00:00:53]Well, the first thing I'm going to go over today is I had a really good friend over here sitting in this seat, Megan, the other day. And she sat in here long enough that when she got out of it, I noticed that the seat, the actual bar was pushed through to the front. And I built a webbing I can't show you cuz it's all back together again. But in the back here, I built a webbing and the foam slipped past it. And so when you're building your webbing for your foam, make sure that it goes down. You got the bar down here. Of course, foam's not going to go past that. And you've got the other one up here. But the the distance between the two did let it slip under. That's all redone. And uh I've tested them a few times now. It's nice to be able to sit in there for quite a while and find that out. So that was cool.

[00:01:45]The other thing I'm working on right now is the door frames. They're a little tougher than what I thought they were. I took a paint stir stick was exactly the same width as the Plexiglas that goes in there and I'm I ended up drilling seven holes like it recommends, but I'm not going to rivet. I tapped them. They seem to be really secure. So we're going to be able to take that on and off, which I think it's going to be a big benefit because down the road if I do that up here on the top also and on the sides when I'm going to build I'm going to build that fiberglass one that everybody builds instead of just the rubber. But if you did the just the rubber, this would still work. You can just pop all the screws out, the glass comes off and then you could work on this. So I'm not going to have access holes like Mark did. I like those. I think they're awesome. They would probably be great.

[00:02:39]Just pop the glass off and then you can get right in there. But I think I'm going to I'm going to have access through the dash itself. I think that's going to be sufficient for me.

[00:02:49]Might change my mind on that one. So where I'm at on this is this this channel that you have to put in that the seal slips over so the door seals when it hits against it. That's a little trickier than I thought. After I got it all together, I started measuring the width of this and I ended up with going with the hinge underneath for one reason.

[00:03:14]I wanted the door closer to the seal.

[00:03:17]I did all the measurements, hung it down and it wasn't touching the seal at all. I don't know why if everybody has that issue, but once I put the seal, I took little pieces as you can see, little pieces. I measured it so I'd have enough all the way around and there's a good solid amount left of what the factory gives you from the kit. And I started measuring with that cuz I wanted it to touch. And the the reason I stuck it underneath is cuz I could move it in slightly.

[00:03:49]Now that you run into a different problem once you stick it underneath is that that that where it's sitting is not perfectly flat. It's It's It's rolled slightly and I didn't want it um in in bouncy flight or whatever you want to call it or a really rough taxiway, I didn't want these settling down over time. And they probably still will, so I'm going to make sure the bottom gap is at its biggest gap of your plus and minus.

[00:04:20]The other thing I did for this piece is the the hinges are not super super heavy. They're not extruded. They're looped.

[00:04:31]So, I don't know what they call the looped ones, but anyway, I took a piece of 40,000 angle and I I ran it on the bandsaw and I've got a perfect piece that I sanded the edges to and I doubled it up under here. So, just so you know, if you decide to reinforce it, have it go right up to the edges of the hinge so that it reinforces it and so it's double the thickness that it was originally.

[00:04:56]And the head then of the rivet sticks down a little further and there's plenty of room for this to shut. It shuts past center still without touching it. So, that that really made this a lot stronger.

[00:05:11]The other thing I ran into is when I countersunk here countersink countersink.

[00:05:17]Um >> [laughter] >> uh they're not perfectly flat and I was already getting into the point where the hole was starting to open up in the back for the rivet. So, I'm going to actually sand the heads on these slightly and I don't think it's going to hurt the Plexiglas. I'm not to that point. I don't understand that part of exactly what I'm going to do.

[00:05:38]Um We got this all together.

[00:05:42]So, two of these put together was 3/16.

[00:05:46]I just cut a hunk of that on the band saw and taped them in and they had to give up their life for being a shim.

[00:05:55]I don't know if you'd like me to say his name, but I was talking to another coal builder the other day and he had this issue.

[00:06:03]The other consideration is is your frame and everything settled in. I've got mine attached as good as I can. Well, I've got it clecoed here and I got a lot of weight on it. It's sitting on the wheels.

[00:06:16]Um I've been in and out of it a lot, so hopefully this has settled in and pulled forward enough. Uh he had an issue with I don't think he'd mind telling because, you know, we all need to know what to look for. Uh he had his settle in when he put his engine on and he had the doors all built and they something moved just enough. I I don't understand it exactly, but something moved just enough that the doors didn't fit quite right anymore, so he built new ones. Um the frame anyway. He had the glass.

[00:06:53]And yeah, I'm worried about that just a little bit, but I've been testing mine and got all the clecos in where they will be. I've got to put this back in to make sure it's all set tight. And uh bounce on it a little more, bounce it around the room and then I'm going to start on the doors. I can't wait to now that I got the top one in and where it's going to live, I can start building the frames next and that's where I'm at. The only other thing I've been doing is I swagged these up and the first one didn't work out, of course, but they did the short ones so that I'd have something to practice. I took the arm out. I couldn't get down in there. One of the first problems I had. If you're in the middle of here it's not focusing.

[00:07:36]There.

[00:07:38]One of the first things I had is I found out you couldn't and that in down there and I've already riveted my whole console in. So, those that have put your consoles in and were thinking the same thing, I'm going to put the wiring in the top, you got to be able to remove this to be able to put that back on.

[00:07:53]And uh the swag tool I got worked really well. I got one, I think, off of Amazon that was official. It come with the paperwork and everything, and I researched what wires we have. We got 17, I think, 7/19 um 8-in and it's a hot-dip galvanized.

[00:08:12]And we I checked uh the book on what that came with the kit, and they were correct. So, no mistakes there.

[00:08:21]I did hear from other videos, which is awesome, don't put the shrink tube on because this needs to be inspected. So, put your shrink tube on and uh just let it sit down there until whenever. It's going to be a long time.

[00:08:34]But, it'll be there and I'll be able to use it. And uh if I don't want to or change my mind, I can just cut it off.

[00:08:40]This is the swag tool I got. Um it comes with a little kit or it comes with a little thing or a little gauge so that you can slide it over and make sure that it's right. It comes with uh some paperwork, also. So, it tells you uh exactly which gap to use on uh steel ones, stainless steel, or uh the copper.

[00:09:02]We are only dealing with copper. So, I did notice that the first one I did, these bolts here at the top of the head, these weren't quite tight yet, tight enough. So, if you get one of these, tighten those right up cuz it what happens is then it squeezes it and it kind of twists as it shuts, and it doesn't look right. So, I redid those.

[00:09:21]I'm going to have to buy some more of those.

[00:09:27]The other thing I got done was uh putting this in and getting it finished cuz we had the interior done. Uh I put this bracket in. That is really tough to to get that drilled up through the bottom, but I've got three as you can see three A4s are going to hold that in and then I went ahead and put in nuts and make of this so that I can remove it.

[00:09:48]Three probably would have did it but we went with four and just looks better to me.

[00:09:55]So in the future I'll be able to remove that and get down in there instead of riveting it in.

[00:10:01]I like I like to be able to remove stuff.

[00:10:05]I probably don't have enough things on here removable.

[00:10:09]Um little things but we're going to try to do that more in the future. I'm going around here thinking what do I want to share or talk about? Oh, yeah, this thing.

[00:10:21]Okay, when we put this piece in in the back it comes up and it ends and you have to trim it to make it look however you want and then the rubber slides on here. I'm going to build a bracket that takes the rubber all the way up to the hinge.

[00:10:36]I have one that I did on this side but it it isn't exactly what I want yet.

[00:10:42]It's nice to build one and just see if it'll work out but I've got a little notch in here.

[00:10:49]If it focuses.

[00:10:51]Got a little notch in there and it's going to slide over that.

[00:10:57]It's got a little notch in there that slides over that, sits here and then I was going to just put a rivet in up here but I don't like the look of it and it angles in a great a great deal.

[00:11:09]Um I'm going to probably come up with something a little different but I do want to not have to just let that hang.

[00:11:15]If you guys it's going to be a bit before the next video.

[00:11:18]If you guys could put in the comments what you've done from here up so that your seal has something to hook to.

[00:11:26]Uh maybe maybe you just leave it lay hanging there and then rivet the piece of seal up there. I'm not sure.

[00:11:33]But, I got a I've never seen anybody build a bracket yet. So, stay tuned for that cuz I will show you what I ended up with. Hopefully, it'll look a little better than this idea. For you that will notice that I have the outside portion of the hinge, the lower piece, um turned around, uh which also would put the piece in just a little bit further. I like that look of the smoothness on the outside. So, but that runs you into uh the next problem that you'll see here of when you bend your uh inside rod 90°, it won't lay flush.

[00:12:10]Every action has an equal and opposite reaction, even in something like this.

[00:12:14]You always got to run into something.

[00:12:16]So, that explains why it looks like it does. And but I love that smooth look and was able to move it in far enough to uh get what I wanted. So, the next thing, clean up this big mess I got here.

[00:12:29]Uh get it ready to take the door off with the hinge pins. Um another thing that you're going to run into if you decide to put it underneath instead of on the side, the hinge itself, is the pins have being a 90°, they you'll have to put a little bend in them to get them to come out down here. 90°, they they hit and then they come out.

[00:12:53]So, as you can see, they're not they got a little bend in them so that they you can get that out here and lay flat. Going to also build a little bracket here that holds those down cuz they want to stay up, I think, all the time.

[00:13:10]Yeah, I'm going to build something, a little something that if I ever do want to take these out, I just take a screw out and those will be ready to pull.

[00:13:18]And we upgraded them to the stainless steel, which is really important. Cuz when you pull, you guys that haven't messed with your hinges from the kit yet, the inside of it is aluminum and it is really tough to get to slide back in there. Just bends and it's This is a like 1,000 smaller. Aircraft Spruce has these.

[00:13:41]I bought two long ones, sixers, and I think it cost me 60 some dollars with shipping.

[00:13:48]And it they're coated so they work with aluminum.

[00:13:52]And yep, [snorts] those work great. Highly recommend, almost a must to do that.

[00:13:59]If you like this If you like this video, like it. If you want to see more of what this build's going to be doing in the future, subscribe and appreciate you coming along and it's been so much fun. If you're thinking about doing one of these, uh I highly recommend it. It's a great kit.

[00:14:20]I get to go to Richard DeVos's uh gala tonight on uh aviation.

[00:14:26]We get to talk airplanes and learn about airplanes tonight. So that's going to be a good time.

[00:14:30]Yeah, thanks a lot for coming along.

[00:14:33]I got to get back to work, of course.

[00:14:35]Gosh, how we going to do this with the doors on there?

[00:14:39]Ah.

[00:14:40]Cuz they don't open up about that far.

[00:14:44]That's going to be a chore. I'll figure it out.

[00:14:50]>> [music]