ORIGINAL: MinnFlyer

Ok, I've got a few things to say on this...

First, you said you can't move the hinges because they would go into the cross bracing - So what? That's not going to hurt anything.

Next, cutting the LE on the black tape would not normally be the way to do it as you would want to avoid a seam in the LE at all cost. However, in this case you could get away with it because if you are going to use Robart hinges, the LE will need to be wider to accomodate the longer hinge.

So you can kill two birds with one stone by doing this:

Remove a section of LE and replace. Now cut a longer piece and glue it in behind the cut section so that it braces all cut lines.

Now the cuts are reinforced and you have plenty of thickness for the longer hinges.