Hello,

I am a senior in college doing a senior project involving product development. I have to create a Solidworks file despite my lack of Solidworks experience. I came across a problem when making a "cross-bar" of sorts (similar to a piston cylinder assembly). The cross-bar is suppose to extend as the angle in the elbow increases.The inside "piston" of the cross-bar is parallel mated to the outside "cylinder", however; we would like the mate to be concentric or advanced. I am not sure why these two items are running through each other rather than simply extending in an orthogonal manner. Below are some picture to help explain:

In the first picture, the cylinder-piston is correctly shown. But when the highlighted blue piece in the second picture is moved up or down, the cylinder-piston fails to extend orthogonally. The two grey parts connected to the cross-bar are meant to slide up/down and left/right respectively.

Any help is greatly appreciated, Thank you.