I decided to go with the Sullivan Tailwheel bracket. It looked much more substantial than the Dubro. I liked that it had a spring gear wire rather than just a straight wire coming down. I cut a small triangular shaped block out of 1/8" ply and installed the blind nuts for the tailwheel bracket, then epoxied it to the bottom of the fuselage. I went ahead and painted the whole piece with 30 minute epoxy to protect it from oil and because it gave it a varnished appearance.

I drilled a hole up thru the elevator and into the rudder and then epoxied a piece of the old nose steering pushrod into the rudder and bent the other end to fit into the tailwheel. I had to cut a pretty big hole in the elevator though, so that the rudder and elevator both would have freedom to move. I hardened the edges of the hole with CA and everything moves freely, but I'm not entirely satisfied with this method... I didn't anticipate needing the large hole in the elevator before I started. I also worry about the durability of this method with the rudder taking all of the steering load... While everything seems really solid now, I'm anticipating durability issues after a few taxis in the grass.

If I have problems I'll do what I should have done in the first place and run a push rod from the rudder servo back to tailwheel... Now that I look at it, I think this would have been easier than connecting it to the rudder as there are already holes drilled in the bulkheads and cut into the bottom of the fuse for another pushrod tube to run back there. You can kind of feel it under the covering.

Well anyway, I guess I'm done for the time being. Can't wait to try it out!

I do enjoy tinkering with these planes, and I realize now there is very little I can do to mess it up so bad that it can't be fixed later. For instance when I epoxied the pushrod into the rudder it turns out I pushed so hard I pushed it all the way thru into the vertical stab! When I came back to it the next day of course the rudder would not move... A little dremel work and it was good to go.

If I decide I don't like the pushrod in the rudder, I'll just snip it off, patch the hole and try something else! This is giving me confidence to tackle the broken stik fuselage.