After fooling with the rudder stops and rudder cables for a while, I decided to re-fabricate the stop. The stock Van's stop dimensions and shape are good, but the mounting hole pattern they depict in the plans (and which I drilled several weeks ago) will not work for me -- the rivets would have overlapped some of the existing skin rivets, and violated edge distance on the aft fuselage bulkhead. I positioned the new stops on the fuselage and checked the rudder movement at 33 degrees each way (near the middle of the 30-35 degree specification), then drilled and clecoed the stops in place. They will be cleaned up and primed later.
Next, I drilled the cable attach holes in the rudder arm and attached the cables. Then I adjusted the length of the cables by adding washers to the clevis bolts that go through the firewall. The rudder cables still sag a bit, which is normal for RVs. I'll consider adding lightweight return springs from the pedals to the firewall in an effort to eliminate this sag.
I moved the rudder pedals to the forward-most position that will allow the brake reservoirs to clear the firewall, and marked this position so I can drill the holes for the stop collar and the forward-most adjustment hole.
