Some time ago, I mentioned that my header tank with hinge pins as well as the canopy had been fitted to the fuselage and the transition from them with micro and super fill to the fuselage was perfected. Both header tank and canopy sat on the shelf for several years. :-(

Move forward to this century... Repositioning the header tank on the fuselage resulted in the hinge pins being quite difficult to insert. Something had changed and I thought it was the header tank but it was not!

What had happened in the meantime? The fuselage was raised off its gear for many months while engine installation was completed. The end result is that 350+lbs hanging on the nose is enough to cause the longerons to flex INWARD. Positioning the header tank and inserting one pin results in an obvious mismatch of top and bottom surfaces on the other side. The AH-HA lightbulb failed to illuminate until yesterday when I removed the instrument panel and its frame for final paint. The .25" bolts at either side of the frame were also difficult to remove. Either the panel frame had stretched or the fuselage width had shrunk.

So at this point there is nothing to be done but wait to see how things line up when full weight is back on the gear.

Has anyone else noticed this problem?

Angier Ames
N4ZQ