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Elevator horn alignment

Girraf

Well Known Member
Friend
Anyone have difficulty getting the root rib, spar, and control horn holes lined up? I’m working on the right elevator and I’ll be damned if I can get all three items to line up. Any two of the three can be aligned, but try to get all 3 to mate up seems impossible. The best I can get is 50% overlap on any offending holes. I made sure I was working with the correct parts and they are in the correct orientation.
 
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Just curious. Who drilled the holes in the two horns at the center bearing?

The problem isn’t with mating the elevator to the stab bushing. I’m having trouble with aligning the prepunches holes in the root rib, elevator skin, elevator spar, and elevator control horn.

I found a parallel thread in the RV-9 section(by the exact same title in fact) where someone else struggled as well. Perhaps I need to just try different sequences of assembly.

http://www.vansairforce.com/community/showthread.php?t=94641&highlight=Elevator+horn+alignment
 
I'm working on a -14, but I had the same issue. Not sure how long I worked assembling, dissembling, pushing, pulling, and swearing before I got it to fit. I was pretty sure that there was an issue with the prepunched holes. I was wrong.

On the link to the previous thread you posted, I found that reply #2 from Mel was correct. The forward flange needed a little tweaking. Also, post number #5 helped as well. I've found that many times the order in which you cleco/assemble makes a difference.
 
I decided to disassemble the components and attempt to modify the radius of the flange bend on the root rib( E-709) where it mates with the spar (E-702) Turns out a little massaging did the trick to move the root rib fwd just enough to get all the holes in the skin/rib/control horn to line up.

I’m a bit surprised that this fit missed the mark given how accurate the pre-punching methodology has shown to be thus far in the build.
 
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