Thanks to Cubes, Bob, and John for the info on the tailwheel. I have looked at it a little and it appears vertical. I'll check it in more detail when I work my way back there.
I apologize for not posting more, but I HAVE been busy on the plane, working every Saturday from 9am-6pm and Mondays from 6pm-2am. As I'm sure everyone will agree, it seems that as I make progress the road ahead stretches ever further. For those who are thinking of buying an older Thorp or any other older plane, I'll post here what I have learned so that I can help others a little for things to watch out for. (By the way - I absolutely love this airplane and am enjoying the epic journey).
FAA AC 43.13 states that if the outer clear coat of aviation wiring cracks when bent it needs replaced. Guess what - my wires in the engine compartment cracked when bent (the clear coat, not the outer insulation, ). So I've changed all of them to be in compliance.
Behind the instrument panel, one of the wires for nav lights came out of the non-aviation ring terminal attached to the switch with just a few ounces of tugging (by accident) - so now I'm replacing all wires and terminals too. None of the terminals back there are modern aviation terminals that grip the insulation as well as the conductor.
The electric trim would intermittently only work in one direction and I traced the problem to a loose solder joint on a pin of the trim switch. Could have been from me moving the center console to which it's mounted. But, that needs repaired and rewired now.
I charged the battery while it was connected to the aircraft's electrical system. Should not have been a problem because several of my buddies have their charger cables permanently mounted on the batteries with a plug at the other end to plug the charger into. After charging though, none of my nav or strobe lights worked and it took about 15 minutes of head scratching, a multi-meter, and a good friend to figure out why. Guess what - several circuit breakers had tripped but are so old THEY DIDN"T POP OUT! Everything worked fine when I manually reset them. Now I'm replacing all those old circuit breakers.
Another example was two weeks ago when I got to the point of opening the bulkhead behind the baggage compartment so me and some EAA buddies could see what was back there. (In case someone doesn't know, I bought this beautiful T-18 from a nice man at our EAA Chapter 45 airport.) In any event, when we looked back there we saw little black things on the bottom skin that we thought looked like rat crap. So, we did what any Thorp builder in his right mind would do - we sent a younger kid back there with a camera and a vacuum to see what these things were. After he extricated himself and we looked at the pictures and went through the vacuum bag, we found out that the rat crap was actually pieces of several grommets. What we surmised had happened was that probably somewhere in the '80s the aircraft underwent modification to change from manual flaps and trim to electric flaps and trim. Whoever was hired to do the work was a little too "expedient" and decided to "fit" the new trim and tail light wires into existing holes - and to do that they took out a section of each grommet to fit these wires. The wires themselves look awfully thin to me - maybe to make them easier to wiggle into the hole. As a result, the wires are against the metal of each hole. See the picture.
The point I'm getting to is that is if you're acquiring an older plane, Thorp or anything else, look at everything to find things (even by accident) and address them now. Basically, I'm almost to the point where all rubber parts, electrical wiring and breakers, coax cables, and pitot/static tubing are all new. Got a new iPad Mini 4 (has anti-reflective screen) with RAM mount and a Stratux for the plane two weeks ago too!
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