New Rudder Cable Links

Back in the shop, finally, after a long break. Iceland is a great place to visit BTW. Today was one of those days where hours were spent working with little to show for it. I got the rudder cables hooked up to the rudder yesterday. This revealed an issue where I had full right rudder travel to the control stop but not so with full left rudder. Further investigation revealed the 2 tabs on the aft rudder tube that the master cylinders attach to were contacting the forward rudder tube when applying full left rudder. The tabs were contacting the forward tube prior to the rudder hitting the aft control stop. Some research online revealed a few others had this issue. The options were to lengthen the rudder cables (not practical), accept less then full left rudder and adjust the aft control stop for that (I didn't like that option), are fabricate longer cable links from steel to replace the stock ones. This would essentially lengthen the rudder cables and allow the rudder to hit the control stop before the tab on the rudder tubes made contact. An email to Vans Tech Support confirmed that longer cable links was fine. He shared that the factory RV-14 demo plane has this issue and they just accept the smaller left rudder travel with no problems. Now I needed the appropriate steel. Fortunately my RV-14 buddy Dan had this issue on his, fabricated his own new links and had plenty of leftover steel in the appropriate gauge and width. He graciously gave me his extra yesterday and I had plenty to work with. It saved me lots of time waiting for it to be delivered from Vans. I had a template for new links that a fellow builder had on his website (thanks E!). The new ones are 4" long vs the old 3.3" ones. Working with steel is tough. You can't cut it with a bandsaw, it's hard on drill bits and to precisely drill holes in. A waterjet cutter would've been nice. So it took hours to fabricate 2 pairs by hand. But I got it done. They aren't perfect but are safe and airworthy which is critical on anything flight control related. I got them primed then test fitted them. I was rewarded with full rudder travel left and right to the stops and no contact from the brake mounting tabs. And I think I picked up a slight amount of extra legroom because the pedals are now pivoted slightly more forward. I did a final coat of white gloss paint to match the rudder tube powder coating. I'll get them reinstalled permanently tomorrow.