Elevator Binding

[P Johnson]

Morning,

So I got to fit the elevator onto the aircraft yesterday, everything was nice and free until I started tightening up the bolts, actually it only needed anyone of the bolts to be tightened and the elevator became very stiff. When I initially assembled the elevator and horizontal stabiliser after doing the reaming and inserting the bushes I noticed that the elevator hinge hinge tabs were tight on the horizontal tail hinge bushings, not the brass bushing but the steel weldment they were not too big but would catch on the tabs some on the left side and some on the right side so as soon as you start to tighten a bolt the little steel bearings which are silky smooth become redundant as you now have metal tab against metal bushing on several of the hinges due to the lateral offset of the tabs and bushings.
The remedy as I see it is to identify the offending steel bushings and file either left or right side until there is a small clearance which will then let the little steel bearing do its job. I have attached a photo of one hinge that is biased to the right and if you can imagine the next one that would be biased to the left creating a brake when either bolts is tightened. The one thing that concerns me is that I have searched this forum and have not found anyone else whom has had this problem?3D3ADA65-609A-4441-805F-0EEBA16AB445.jpg