Bending the slider frame to the left...

Started on fitting the slider frame yesterday, and after a good bit of head-scratching I finally realized why things didn't look quite right.

With the forward bow pulled up to the roll bar, the entire aft bow--pins, slide block, etc.--is shifted half an inch to the right. I know some have counseled not to mess with the square side rails but I don't see an alternative in this case; I think both of them as well as the center tube need to get tweaked.

Anyone run into this situation before? I'm going to be picking up a conduit bender from Lowe's aviation supply later today, but any further tips/suggestions would be quite welcome.

Thanks!

You'll find lots of discussion by searching the forum history. The space frame for the slider canopy will distort and warp in all kind of ways when pushed and pulled on.

Once I was happy with the forward bow fit to the side rails and roll bar, I fastened two dowels vertically into to a piece of plywood (Finish Kit crate base) so that I could slip the forward bow over the dowels and fix them in place. Then I went to work with the conduit bender on the sides, trial and error, until I was satisfied.

This reduced the degrees of freedom that the frame could move, but even with this, working on one side rail can kick out the other side rail, so you also have to massage the rear hoops at the same time.

Just me

I follow the directions and checked the side rails shape prior to starting to tweak anything and they matched perfectly so were never touched.

My biggest tweak ( and most frustrating) was the rear bows: they seem to cause all kinds of weird alignment until they are just right.