Milling down Elevator Bearings and Bushings
A machinist should be doing precision machine work, not a home builder. The Kitfox rudder hardware needed professional help.
Today we continued work on the flight controls. I spent a few hours this morning fitting washers and bolts so that my controls are buttery smooth. The progress is almost invisibly slow, tomorrow we will do a video update to get everyone on board.
We also, by a stroke of fate, found a machinist in town who very professionally fit my elevator bearings and bushings. The factory recommends that you sand the bearings down in a drill press:
Many builders spend countless hours sanding. I got it done in 40 minutes.
According to the Machinist:
“The inner steel sleeve diameter was:
OD —-8mm (minus) { ~0.314”}
ID ——4.5mm { ~0.177 inch}
( Bolt is 3/16” or 0.187” )
The Brass Bushing:
OD —— 7/16“
ID ——- 5/16” minus { ~0.311” }
In order to make things work, I increased the bore in the steel sleeve to accept the 3/16 Hex Headed bolt. Then Bored out each Brass Bushing to the correct assembled fit for the 8mm sleeve. In my opinion, inch & metric parts for this particular assembly got mixed up. “
The finished product.
The finished product turned out to be flawless. It should have come from the factory this way. I imagine that this won’t be the last time I see this issue. I will do some before and after photos to show the improvements.