Chapter 11 – Elevators installed

Ok, finally today was the day for the final installation of the elevators onto the canard.

Yesterday, after a good bit of prepping, I realized that the end of each elevator pin was gnarled from too many sessions of using vise grips on the end of them to extract them during the dark ages when it was far, far too difficult to remove the hinge pins. So, I took the hinge pins back to my shop and cleaned them up there… after getting the canard situated at an angle inside the hangar to allow enough clearance for said hinge pins to be inserted into place.

Back to today, as you can see, using patience and continuing to work through all the minor issues I was able to get the elevators installed in about 2.5 hours. To be clear, I do still need to install the 10-32 set screws on the outboard end of each elevator to secure the hinge pin from coming out (if that is even possible!)… but, not only did I not have a 3/32″ hex key (the only missing in the set I brought <sigh>), but the longer set screws I brought were also 1/4″, not 10-32.

The one significant issue I had after installing the elevators was that at this exact pivot point the nose of the left elevator outboard weight catches on the front vertical wall of the weight pocket in the canard. I’ll deal with that tomorrow to get the elevator pivoting freely and unencumbered.

The good news, visible in this picture, is that ALL the thin washers are installed on the elevator hinge tabs, one on each side. This is the left outboard hinge tab.

A couple more proof-positive pics showing confirmation of the installed washers, with them on each side of the left middle hinge tab (pic 1) and the right inboard hinge tab (pic 2). For those of you that have had to install these washers, you know what a challenging feat it is to get these little suckers into place.