The person that started my kit did not have faith in the tail plane
design, nor do I. He designed and built a pinned clamping system that
fits inside the fuselage that would prevent any play from developing due
to wear. I don't feel that the retention between TP-4 and Tp-6 tubes to
be adequate because of the thin wall. If any play at all was present at
assembly, it seems that the slight movement would increase the size of
the holes to where it became excessive. I've attached a PDF file ofwhat
I would like to do to change it, but am not sure that it can be done
with 100% realiability. Maybe there are some engineers out there that
can. The 3/8" modification has not been done, so the idea of drilling
out slightly smaller than 3/8" and driving increasingly larger pins
through to expand the holes to 3/8" while work hardening them seems to
be my other recourse. BTW, my old Sears garden tractor used the same
method of attaching the front axle to the frame as the present system of
a pin through thin walled metal and assembly that had worn so badly in
one year that it was hard to steer and impossible to mow evenly. I took
the axle off and had a tube welded in it and collars welded to the frame
and was able to get 8 years of satifactory service from it until the
motor gave up.
I have pictures of the clamp collars made and installed in my kit by the
previous builder if anyone is interested.
Vaughn Teegarden
N914VA - no progress
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