After completing the priming, I set about riveting the push rods. Unfortunately I made the bonehead mistake of not properly labeling everything. I had a pretty good idea which part went where, but I was till off a little bit. It took some trial and error to figure it out. And then a little sandpaper to get everything to fit.

I used one steel rivet and one aluminum rivet in each end. 

The large pushrods were quick and easy with the pneumatic pop rivet gun and pop rivets. 

Finally, I temporarily assembled each of the aileron bell cranks. I will wait awhile longer before final install. 

Today I set about drilling the remainder of the aileron push rods. First I measured the circumference of the tube using a post-it note. I then divided that number by 6 to get the appropriate spacing and made marks for each rivet hole location. (IGNORE the math, as measured incorrectly on the first pass, and forgot to take a picture of the correct post-it note. The principle is the same though.)

Then I used another bit of post it note to hold the rod ends in place for the first drill before using a cleco. I decided to prime after drilling everything instead of before.

I set up a makeshift jig to ensure the rod was centered. I should have done this for the shorter rods too. 

I had to slightly adjust the position of the jig base so that there was room for the clecos.

Next I setup for priming by scuffing the surfaces with scotch bright and then cleaning with acetone. I used the rudder hinge pin to push the acetone cheese cloth through the pushrods. I then taped the ends and poured AKZO into each pipe and shook. I repeated this process a couple times and then primed the outsides with the HVLP gun.

Tonight I reamed the bell crank bushings. I ordered a 0.2490 reaming bit off of Amazon. The bolts are slightly undersized. There is no need to go the full 0.25 inches. Further if you ream with a regular bit you could scar the inside of the bushing. Remember the bell crank rotates about the bushing. The bushing does not rotate around the bolt. Since this will connect to the control stick, I’d like to keep tolerances as tight as possible so that the controls have minimal slop over the life of the aircraft.

To ream the bushing, I drilled a hole in a 2/4 with the drill press the same size as the bushing outer diameter. I then put the bushing in the hole, and reamed the center, using the 2×4 as a jig.

Next I drilled the short aileron push rods. Be careful these can be a bit tricky.