John's Build

[Floog]

I believe mine lined up perfectly. But if not, I'd just put a Crescent wrench on them and give them a slight twist until they did. Have fun with the sign off, John !

[jrevens]

I believe mine lined up perfectly. But if not, I'd just put a Crescent wrench on them and give them a slight twist until they did. Have fun with the sign off, John !

Thanks, Floog. I was thinking the same thing. Are you talking about putting a little twist in the rudder horns, or just bending the links? I don’t see why mine would/should be any different than the others, as the exit point of the cables from the fuselage is fixed, and the position of the rudder horn is too. I noticed it quite awhile ago, but didn’t think too much about it until another builder pointed it out to me also.

As I said, I can’t seem to get anyone at Kitfox to answer my inquiry... left voice mail over a week ago, and also a text message to John with an attached picture. I’m not real worried about it, but I’d like to know if they’re all like that or if someone screwed up on mine somehow, that’s all.

[David47]

After a couple of tries to get a response from John @ Kitfox without success, I thought I’d throw this out to the group. Has anyone noticed the “misalignment” of the angles between the rudder cables and the axis and horn of the rudder? As it is, it creates a bending moment on the horn instead of a nice 90 deg. pull. I’ve thought of making a couple of new pairs of links with a slight bend in them to minimize that. This is on a Super Sport. I suspect that the alignment is correct on some earlier models where the cables exited the fuselage higher up, and when the routing of the cables changed, the original position of the rudder horn was maintained.

Irritating as it might be, I doubt the loads in the rudder cables would be enough to give the rudder control horn any grief. I'd leave it as is. Also, if you're going to bend anything, I'd suggest you bend the links not the horns. Those horns are reasonably stiff and you may do unintended damage around the weld areas.

[jrevens]

Thanks David... if I bent them I would not stress the welds.

[jiott]

I looked at my rudder cable lineup today and it is off, but by a very small amount. I haven't worried about it for 600 hours, but if I were to do something, I think a small bend in the connecting links would be just fine.

[bholland]

John,
Glad to see another successful completion. Your post have been a great source of help and inspiration. I know this is probably a dumb question but could you slightly back off the castle nuts or would this be a big no no? I have removed my rudder in preparation for covering but I looked at mine today and it looks like it will be angled as well but maybe not as much. I know when I trial fit everything, I did not tighten the nuts all the way so I never really noticed how bad it was.
I plan on being at Oshkosh and hope to see your plane as well as others and meet more of you guys at the get together. I definitely know that if I ever fly to Oshkosh I am going to try to avoid being shammed, and ask for a parking spot far away from your plane.

Brett

[PapuaPilot]

The bolt at the rudder horn already needs to be slightly loose, I wouldn't loosen it any more as this will accelerate the wear in the hole causing a tipped hole in the long run.

You could fix this by either bending the rudder horn or the links. If you do the horn you will want to support the inboard part of the horn and put some bending action on the outboard end. This could easily be done with a couple vise grips by sandwiching the horn with some small pieces of sacrificial aluminum so you don't scratch up the finish on the horn.

[Shadowrider]

After a couple of tries to get a response from John @ Kitfox without success, I thought I’d throw this out to the group. Has anyone noticed the “misalignment” of the angles between the rudder cables and the axis and horn of the rudder? As it is, it creates a bending moment on the horn instead of a nice 90 deg. pull. I’ve thought of making a couple of new pairs of links with a slight bend in them to minimize that. This is on a Super Sport. I suspect that the alignment is correct on some earlier models where the cables exited the fuselage higher up, and when the routing of the cables changed, the original position of the rudder horn was maintained.

Did you ever hear back from John at Kitfox?

[jrevens]

The bolt at the rudder horn already needs to be slightly loose, I wouldn't loosen it any more as this will accelerate the wear in the hole causing a tipped hole in the long run..

Yes, I already considered this from the beginning... thanks Phil. I’ll easily fix it one way or another, but I was mainly curious if others had noticed the same thing. I think the picture may make it look a little worse than it is.

Shadowrider - I didn’t hear from John, but Debra did call me & explained that John doesn’t respond to texts (I don’t blame him), and he’s been in California taking some training or a class. I could send an email to him, but decided it wasn’t that important to me now.

[jrevens]

I did my first engine start and taxi on Tuesday... engine started instantly, with my son Matt standing by with fire extinguisher - no leaks anywhere. It feels smooth, and after warming it up a full-throttle static run-up resulted in approximately 5200 rpm. That seems good to me for now. 70” 3-blade Whirlwind set at approx. 20 deg. The factory set idle stops gave me about 2200 rpm, so even though I’ll normally idle it at or above that, I set the stops quite a bit lower... I’ll see what that gives me on the next run. I’m pleased with the brakes... even though I didn’t “condition” them yet, they held fine for the full throttle run-up (I had taxied back to the hangar, and no chocks at that time). Everything felt so good that I almost wanted to fly it right then.