No problem. This one is confounding. The profile of the formed plastic pieces in the carrier matches the shape of the rail, but it appears to be a bit too narrow. There was no hope of mounting it on the rail before I spread it a bit using the pliers.
It's a well-known secret that the older pre-F rails were typically but not always a tad wider than the F rails. Some pre-F function carriers work fine with F rails and vice versa, but some pre-F carriers are just too tight to fit on F rails. This seems to be both by design and by sample-to-sample variation (according to Rod Klukas, even the older F rails and carriers were made to looser tolerances than current production; he had to send a mid-90s F carrier to France to be tweaked to fit a current production F rail).
So you can send your function carrier to France for reworking ($$$$) or you can try what I've used. Remove the knobs so that you can remove the silver metal side plates. Remove the nylon pieces (carefully, they're fragile) and place a piece of brass shim stock between the carrier center body and nylon piece. You'll have to punch holes (a paper punch works fine) for clearance holes for the knobs. Do this for each side, reassemble, and try it out. It'll be trial and error and I found that you need a much thicker shim than you think you'll need just by measuring the max width of the F rail cf. the pre-F rail. I'd suggest 0.015" per side as a starting point. I don't know what happened to my piece of 0.020 shim stock but send me your address and I'll send you some of my roll of 0.005 stock.
When I find my older so-modified function carrier I'll post a pic here.
They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see nothing but sea.
-Francis Bacon
Thanks John!
Somehow, I knew you would have the answer to this puzzle. My carrier is just a bit too tight to work on my rail. I can get it onto the rail, but it sure does not want to move.
I appreciate the offer. PM coming.
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