• Elevator horn alignment
    Empennage
    Jun 23, 2017

    After checking measurements and alignments multiple times between the elevator horns and the corresponding ribs, I'm convinced the E-905 rib at the root of the left elevator is mispunched. Measuring the right-side E-00906-1, there's about a 3/32" difference in the hole centerings compared with the E-905. As a result, the horn doesn't even come close to fitting on the left side, but the right side lines up perfectly. Now I'm awaiting to get another response from Van's to see what to do about it.

    Update #1: I got a reply from Van's and indeed the rib is mispunched. Supposedly some other RV-14 builders had similar issues. They mailed out a new rib very quickly, but unfortunately they sent the wrong one :( I'm now waiting again to hear back from the service department.

    Update #2: After calling Van's, it was no problem to have them ship out a new E-905 rib. They covered the cost again, and were very friendly about it. The annoying part was that I had to reprime this rib. I am starting to really hate the process of priming parts. The time it takes to scour, degrease, dry, wipe down with alcohol, mix the primer, prep the spray gun, prime, and cleanup takes half a day. That and half of my parts always end up with some orange peel which annoys me to no end. I should probably revisit my spray gun setup, because clearly something isn't quite right. At any rate, I decided to clean up and deburr all the remaining parts in the empennage to prime them together which was a major pain, but hopefully saves me some time in future.