Friday September 18, 2020
Elevator Bellcrank, Pushrods (Aft Fuselage)
3.0 Hours

I started today by bolting in the elevator pushrod bellcrank. I was missing the bolt for this, so I used a temp overlong bolt until a new one gets here. I realized later that these washers are not the correct ones. I also noticed that I had never riveted the F-728A bellcrank channel to the bottom skin, so I'll need to do that eventually.

Then I started fabricating the elevator pushrods. This is F-790 that goes from the bellcrank back to the elevator control horns. It's 1.5" in diameter. I carefully drilled the 8 circumferential holes into the threaded rod end on both sides.

Then I went through the laborious process of prepping the pushrod for priming, including the inside of the tube. The plans have you prime the inside of the rod since it will be impossible to inspect it in the future. Once it was primed, inside and out, I pulled the blind rivets to complete it.

Then I repeated the whole process on the forward pushrod that connects the stick assembly in the cockpit back to the bellcrank. It's only 3/4" in diameter and quite a bit shorter, so it was quicker.

I've been getting really annoyed recently having to hunt through a bunch of parts bags to find hardware when I need it, so I finally bought a few more divided storage bins and organized all of the fuselage parts bags. I also sorted a whole bunch of misc bolts, nuts, and washers that have been kicking around. This took a few hours, but was worth it!

Later, I threaded the rod end bearings and jam nuts into both ends of F-790 and then bolted it into the bellcrank....

...and the elevator control horns.

The bellcrank is supposed to be straight up and down with the elevators in their neutral position. The lower bolt hole on the bellcrank should show through the center of this hole in the F-729A bellcrank rib and it looks like it does.

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