Brief Description: Corrected stick alignment and opening.
Removed the under-seat cover and studied the control mechanism. Disconnected the rod ends as pictured. The misalignment I was concerned about was side to side. Fore and aft is fine. The other thing that bothered me is that the left stick contacts the edge of the opening where the stick emerges, when deflected full right. It touches about the same time as the control hits the stop, enough to wear the paint off the weldment.
Locked the flaperon mechanism in place with the locking bolt, adjusted the rod ends, and now both sticks are vertical within a degree. That satisfied my sense of aesthetics . However the left stick still contacted the edge of the opening with full right deflection. Called Van's, and they agreed that that is not desireable and agreed it would be permissable to file off 1/16 inch from the side of the metal opening, which I did.
I think the issue was probably due to a slight variation in the stick weldment. Anyway, problem solved. I repaired the paint wound with the weldment touch-up bottle from Van's.
Reinstalled the carb balancing vacuum tubes, and wired the lower cowl back away from the spinner. Hope to get a ground run tomorrow when the temps are predicted to be up around 30.
Removed the tail tiedown eyebolt to cut it off and remove the nut. Will finish tomorrow.
