HK 500 FBL Refit Underway

Began the refit of the HK 500 FBL today, deconstructing it and assessing the damage. The boom was pretzled of course, but the rest of the tail assembly is fine. I will check the servos here soon. The main shaft, not unexpectedly was bent badly and has been replaced. The main block upper bearing is bad, so today 

I ordered a new block set from Medusa Heli on eBay. I think the old one was going bad for some time. That will be here next week. I may have to open the frame to get the lower one swapped out. The upper one had one of the canopy struts on it that snapped off and I can't get the bitter end out, so it was a waste anyway. Two reasons to replace it. I don't like have the struts embedded like that, so I will move them back a little on the frame. The canopy will allow it.

The gears are all fine, so all in all, not too bad. I decided to sand and repaint the landing gear, as I had painted them black during the US Marines Drone phase of its life, and I hadn't prepped it so it was flaky. I like the bright orange tail, and am thinking of adding a splash of color on the skids, maybe yellow, maybe white. We'll see.