Rudder hinge brackets not aligned?

Help!

I'm trying to drill my vertical to the fuselage, and it appears that my center hinge bracket is shorter, as in more forward, than the top and bottom by about 1\16". In other words, the holes for the rudder attachment are out of alignment.
I don't know what I would have done back then that would make it any different.

If yo have not yet drilled the front vs spar, you can try repositioning it either up or down and also in front of or behind the attachment plate, this can induce enough change in the rear spar to line everything up.

Chris

how I did mine, got a string and put it through all the heim bolt hinges and adjusted them on the rudder according to plan specs and to be aligned, then bolted the VS up to the back of the fuse, with all the riveting on the VS rear spar all those rivets will distort it a little, get your string again, put it through all the hinge holes, put the washer on the top left in between the VS and fuse, bend the VS forward till all your hinge holes lineup and set L offset at front of VS to Fuse and drill the bracket to the HS forward spar. this may be all wrong but mine is all straight and the rudder will swing if you blow on it. ;-)

Rudder hinge brackets

I noticed this when I was doing as trial fit of my rudder onto my VS in the VS storage rack. Measured the rod ends on the rudder VERY precisely and found the three hinge bolts wouldn't line up. Discovered the VS rear spar was not very stiff and would move around a lot just with hand pressure.

I plan to drill and bolt the VS rear spar to the aft fuselage bulkhead, then put the rudder on with temporary hinge pins, then drill the VS forward spar to the front bracket.

Does anyone know where one can get a longer hyme joint for the middle joint on the rudder - RV-7. I am not totally happy with the thread engagement. I installed exactly per Vans drawings. I checked Spruce and no joy there ....

Adjusting all three cannot get you in alignment? which one is not long enough?

Success!

I actually found that the stabilizer would flex enough to line everything up. I had to trim a little more off the splice plate for the front spar, and got it clamped in place where the top of the stabilizer moved forward. This brought the center bracket in line.

Once everything was drilled, I hung the rudder and it swung with no effort.

I think I was a little gun-shy after my third build of the horizontal stabilizer.
Mentally I think I'm back on track because we drilled the wings this week and everything came out perfectly.

terrye said:

I plan to drill and bolt the VS rear spar to the aft fuselage bulkhead, then put the rudder on with temporary hinge pins, then drill the VS forward spar to the front bracket.

Click to expand...

This is the right approach. The lower portion of the fin spar is flexible and is probably bowed a little, so the hinge brackets may not line up. Just set all the hinge rod-end bearings in good alignment on the rudder, with the correct spacing (note all three are different) and then put the rudder on. This will force the lower portion of the fin spar into proper position. You can mount the lower portion of the fin spar to the fuselage first as Terrye describes, and then after the rudder install forces the hinge brackets to line up by forcing the fin spar to be straight, then you can do the forward fin attachment.