Stjohn's RV-7

3 hours.
For real this time. Last time, I torqued down the AN4 bolts and found that the side-to-side motion of the stick was… resistive. as in, not “free and correct. After checking VAF, it seems that it’s a fairly common problem for the control column parts’ fit to suck. I just ground down the stick and the bushings and threw the column in a vise and bent the ears outward a little. Not a big deal, and by all reports, the right thing to do. Also, the usual solution is to ream out the tube welded to the stick, grind it and the brass bushing so they slip fit between the ears on the control column, which I did. It still didn’t work. I was still getting friction after the bolts were torqued down. So then I had a thought. What if the surface on the end of the bushing wasn’t ground perpendicular to the bushing? Would that not create a side-load and cause friction inside the tube rotating around the bushing? In a word, yeah.. It would. So how the frak do I make the end of the bushing square to the side? The answer seems obvious, but it escaped me for a bit: Chuck the bushing into the drill press, then lower it onto a file resting on the platform of the press. Bingo. perfectly flat bushing end. Sure enough I torqued it down and it move freely, just like it’s supposed to. These shots are of the stick moving the whole kaboodle back and forth without error:


And here’s the control column assembled:

Of course, i’m skipping the less than complimentary things I said while trying to get all the bolts and washers in before final torque and application of torque seal, most of which would get you fined if you said them on TV. But once that was done, it was time to move on to the roll bar, or ‘cabin frame’ as Van’s calls it. I got the aft cabin frame halves drilled for the access holes, then started on the F-631x angles, which will eventually hold the roll bar to the fuselage. I still have more work to do on these, but they’re getting there. Oh, and a shot for the FAA, just to show, yes, it’s me building this thing.