My buddy Andre stopped by this morning and helped me finish riveting the final skin on the aircraft. I had left the edge of this skin unriveted so that I could easily get the canopy pins in and out during the final canopy fitting, but that’s done now.
I adjusted the brake master cylinders as far as they will go, but it wasn’t enough to prevent inadvertent brake activation. I had another problem too that I didn’t realize last night. With either of the rudder pedals all the way forward, the inner pedals hit the center heat box. They don’t hit it square but instead rub along the side. That’s clearly unacceptable, so I decided to fabricate shorter links.
I took 1 3/8″ out of each link which pulls the pedals back just far enough that they don’t contact the heat box. This helped with the brake geometry as well since the rudder pedals are more tipped back (relative to my feet) with the shorter links. I spent some time in the plane after making this change and I think this will work well. Ignore the fact that there is only one link here. There will be one on each side of the weldment flange and cable fitting to avoid introducing twisting forces into either one, but I just fabricated on per side for the trial fitting.
