Yesterday evening I mounted to top and bottom panels, including the little speaker. That more or less finishes the standard K1.
I have also checked the filter alignments again and they seem fine. It feels easier to do the alignments using the built in wattmeter rather than an external one on the contrary to what the manual suggests. I must admit though that I did not use the WM-2 but an old Kenwood AT-180.
I still need to assemble the noise blanker and do some measurements on the receiver side. If they weather will be acceptable in on Sunday, which it most likely wont, I will go out and do some field tests, too.
I did have the ATX-1080 attached to the K1 and I did copy some stations, but signal was very bad because the antenna is sitting inside this building where I live, surrounded by thousands of computers and cheap switch-mode power supplies. My first impression were definitely good and I think I will like the front panel design very much. All the important functions can be reached via a single button press and this is very important to me.