First of all, thanks for all the comments so far.
I just measured the distance between the two top outboard edges of the
cockpit bellcrank bracket, and compared that with the bottom two. If they
were parallel, I would expect the values to be close. (unless it was a
parallelogram, but then only one side would be affected this way, with
respect to the lower bracket, and this is not the case) The distances came
in at just over 42 1/4" for the top, and just shy of 42 3/8" for the bottom.
Thus they are off only by 1/8" tops. The bottom dimension is the longer
dimension, and the bottom side of the bracket(bellcrank end) is the side
that hits up against the fuselage, not the top side that I said earlier.
Since test fitting into the actual boat shell was SO close to working, I
ground 1/8" from just the corner of the 3mm plywood and metal. This needed
to be done on both sides, since they were both touching. This will have
negligible effect on the strength of the bracket, which will be
bond-strengthened later, and am satisfied that everything clears now, and
can move on without worry.
What this tells me:
At least with MY cockpit module, had I gotten both brackets perfectly
vertical and square with each other (the manual just says to visually align
them), I feel there could still be a slight push on one or both of the
brackets by the fuselage shell when bonding the cockpit module in, and it
may also depend on rivet location when bonding, or the squeezing applied by
the fuselage holder, etc. We are talking 1/8" or less here, so it is not
much. I am pretty convinced now that if the problem exists in other modules,
and not caught, many others may have had a small bellcrank alignment issue
after bonding due to this reason. It would have a tendency to separate the
bellcranks from mating, by only a small extra amount. If the distance
between the top brackets (with respect to the aircraft) was the longer
dimension by 1/8", this problem would probably go away. Any more than that,
might start to make the top part of the bracket touch.
Regards,
Greg Fuchs (A050)
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