A friend of mine had told me that he located parts faster than our mechanic did. Bill had ordered a new canopy as soon as we had talked about what shade to get, but the nose strut was another story. He really wasn't sure where he was going to get one. He had already tried Fletcher Air, the prime supplier of Grumman Traveler, Cheetah, Tiger, and Trainer parts in the US, and they didn't have one. I told him I'd see what I could do to locate one.
I belong to the American Yankee Association, a non-proft association of Grumman owners, and routinely prowl through the e-mail listings of the Grumman Gang, many of who belong to the AYA. Via e-mai, I posted an note asking for help locating a nosestrut for my Cheetah. Several people responded by that afternoon, telling me about a machine shop in nearby San Antonio that manufactured new struts. One gentleman told me that the shop had an ad in the AYA magazine. I knew the last issue I had seen didn't have the ad, so I dug back a couple of issues to find it.
The shop was run by the widow of the man who had started it. She had just had a stroke, and she apologized for being "hard to understand", though I assured her she wasn't. She had some struts in stock, and we agreed to ship one to me. The one catch was that she only did business using cash, so she was shipping the strut to me C.O.D. via UPS.
I soon realized that the shipping situation would be problematic. Someone would need to be at home to sign for the piece and deliver a check, and both my wife and my own work obligations for the next few days ensured we wouldn't get home until late. That meant a "miss" likely, and getting a package out of the hands of UPS if they don't physically deliver it is difficult at best. I called Bill and asked if I could have the strut shipped directly to him (meaning he'd have to pick up the C.O.D) and he agreed. So, I called the shop back and asked them to change the shipping address.
In the pictures below, you can see the new nose strut installed on the airplane but before it has been coated with a sealant (at the joint with the firewall mounting structure) or the rubber boots have been installed. The boots tend to trap water, so a good thing to do is simply punch a small hole in them near the lower end to let the water drain out (and thereby avoid an expensive repair).
The other expensive and new piece was the forward windscreen. I don't have any pictures of the old, cracked windscreen, but the crack that drove the replacement was about four inches long. The new one is shown just resting in its box before installation.
As you can see, the mounting holes have not been drilled in, yet.