Brief Description: Out with the old, in with the new
I swear I've gone through the entire control system trying to hunt down the slop I feel in the roll control. I even threw out old hardware and replaced them with new Cozy Girls parts...well there was one thing I didn't check...the U-Joints. Bingo. My Universal Joints came with the project when I bought it. And they were still in the bags brand new. HOWEVER, brand new in MAY of 1981! My only guess is that they were built poorly or have actually been deteriorating for the last 34 years. Either way, I couldn't stand flying with the slop anymore. Time to go! I also decided to install all new torque tubes and hardware at the same time. When I assembled these, I didn't take the time to REALLY get nicely tight fitting bolts by using the proper bits. This time I was committed to it. Funny, I actually bought a 1/4" reamer for installing AN4-10A Bolts and found even the reamer to be sloppy. I ended up installing the 1/4" Bolts into holes drilled with an "E" drill bit. Yep, they have bits from A-Z for those "micron" perfectionist guys like me. I also used a #12 drill bit for the AN3 bolts on the rest. Now I am happy to say that there is Z.E.R.O slop. The new U-Joints and precision drilling did the trick! The second task I NEEDED to address was the re-shaping of the aileron Leading edges. They were NOT rounded as well as they should be and I'm wondering if it's affecting the flight characteristics. Rolling the airplane to the right doesn't feel quite right. I added micro to the leading edges. I'm also going to make every effort to balance the Ailerons to each other as right now the delta is 1/2 lb. Either way, she's soon gonna to be an even happier airplane.
