More elevator work

Not a lot of time in the shop tonight, but I did get the elevators fixed up where they move freely. After some more experimentation, I determined that the right elevator was OK, and it was only the left one that was binding up. I arrived at this conclusion by torquing down all the hinge points, then loosening the center bearing bolt. When that’s tight, it pretty effectively ties the elevators together, so it’s hard to tell if only one side is binding. With it loosened a bit, the right elevator moved freely, but the left one still wanted to stick a bit.

I ended up pulling the left one off and bringing each rod end in half a turn. After that, getting the center bearing bolt through was a lot easier, verifying my suspicion that that was the source of the binding. And once I torqued everything down, both elevators move nice and free now.

And yes, it really took an hour to do this. Installing and removing every single one of these bolts is tedious, especially the center one.

Next up: finishing and installing the vertical stab, then some control system work.

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