Boy, it sure is nice to have a friend five minutes away who has a machine shop in his hangar! I went over there this morning and he modified the control column mounting block so that a washer would sit flat against the top surface at the bolt locations.

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Then we scrounged a piece of 4130 tube, drilled the ID to slightly over 3/16", and he parted off two 1/4" spacers for me.

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Back home, I found that the spacers were a tad long, so I held them with needle nose pliers and shortened them on the disc sander. I also ground a chamfer on each one so it would clear the weld bead under each of the mounting tabs on the fuselage.

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Then I was finally able to reinstall the bracket, with just enough clearance that fabric won't touch the end of the bolt.

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Now that I look at that last photo up close, it appears the spacer on the aft (left) bolt rotated under the nut; perhaps that one didn't need the chamfer after all...

I had to use longer bolts to account for the spacers, and the only ones I had are too long, so I'll need to order some. For now, it's a festival of washers!

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I figured I might as well press on, so I installed the control column also. I don't remember how it was done by the first builder, but I do remember it was quite tight, so I presume he didn't fiddle with it to get a smooth action. I found that the plastic bearing block on the left side pulled the column down too far, causing the axle bolt on the right to bind in the bronze bushings. Not wanting the washer festival to end, I put five -10 washers on each bolt between the plastic block and the mounting tabs to get the block high enough that the column rotated fore/aft with just a light touch. Before you shout at your screen, read on...

[NOTE: The plastic bearing block is installed temporarily for now.]

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Since I didn't fabricate the plastic bearing block, I don't know what the dimensions of the supplied material were. If someone has one that hasn't been touched yet, could you measure it? I'm curious to know if the first builder cut it down too far, or if it was provided this size.

It could be that the welded tabs for the aluminum bushing block on the right side cause it to angle upwards slightly. I'm considering putting a -10 washer into the stack-up under the "L" angle so that the whole block is angled downward to the left a few degrees, then I could probably remove two or three washers from under the plastic block at the other end. There's already one washer on the aft tab, as there was a gap to fill. If I move one more washer from each bolt head to the space between the "L" and the tab, I'll only have two under each bolt head. That, I can live with. Thoughts?