Help! Building the FT Tutor MKR2 and the powerpod is too snug, fix?

[yarnosh]

So I'm about done building the body. I think it went OK. But I just made the power pod and it's very snug when inserted through the nose. So snug it almost got stuck in there and it wasn't even in 100%. This is not usable.

How can I fix this? I can't remove material (paper) from the sides of the pod because that will ruin structural integrity. And I can't really get inside there anymore to remove material from the inside of the body.

And yes, I am sure I did the "A" style sides on the pod. The verticals are sitting "Above" the base. And the wood firewall piece fits square on the pod face. Somehow I made the body too narrow by just 1-2mm, even tapering a bit towards the tail. The hatch fits nicely though.

 

[ColoFlyer]

Just curious if you remembered to remove the paper from the Primary Doubler and Secondary Doubler, as josh mentioned in the build video that removing the paper from one side of each of these allows a little bit of extra space for the power pod to slide in.
Installing the doublers are shown from 4 minutes to 8 minutes in this video below.

If you did this when you built it and it is still too tight to fit, your only option may be to use some DTFB and just cut out and build another power pod just slightly smaller to slide in. Not sure how you can fix the one that doesn't fit.

 

[Foamforce]

I had the same issue when I built mine. Here’s what I said back then about it…

“Oh yeah, one more issue I had during building was that my power pod didn’t fit. It was about 1/16” too wide. I didn’t fold the power pod wrong (it matched the FT firewall that I used) and I did remove the paper from the doublers. Maybe I didn’t compress the doublers well enough when I glued them on, although there is no visible gap. Regardless, it was fairly easy to fix by cutting 1/16” out of the middle of the power pod template and also sanding 1/16” off the firewall.”

Mine was a scratch built from the plans on FTCA. Perhaps there’s an error in the plans?

 

[yarnosh]

Just curious if you remembered to remove the paper from the Primary Doubler and Secondary Doubler, as josh mentioned in the build video that removing the paper from one side of each of these allows a little bit of extra space for the power pod to slide in.
Installing the doublers are shown from 4 minutes to 8 minutes in this video below.

If you did this when you built it and it is still too tight to fit, your only option may be to use some DTFB and just cut out and build another power pod just slightly smaller to slide in. Not sure how you can fix the one that doesn't fit.

I did remove the paper from one side of the doublers. Maybe I needed to remove both sides of the paper and just have raw foam?

WHat's DTFB?

 

[ColoFlyer]

WHat's DTFB?

Sorry, DTFB = Dollar Tree Foam Board (foam board from the dollar store or Walmart).
Or any foam board that is similar to what the Flitetest planes are made of. Flitetest also sells the foam board.