The friction in my rudders has never been great, but lately it has become unacceptably high. I have adjustable rudder pedals on both sides. I narrowed the problem down to the cable running through the left fuselage wall. Coincidentally, I accidentally drilled through the embedded Nylaflow tubing on that side while installing the load pads. I addressed that mistake by enlarging the hole to about ¾” and cleaning up the open ends of the Nylaflow tubing. I also coated all the cables with Teflon powder before installation.

 

Considering that the cable O.D. is 1/8”, and the Nylaflow tubing is 1/8” I.D., these cables are going to be a very tight fit even in the best of circumstances. In order to troubleshoot this I’ll have to cut off the Nicropress sleeve and remove the rudder cable to inspect everything. I also recall that you can only insert the cable into the tubing if it has a fresh cut using the proper cable-cutting tool, which means I won’t be able to reuse the cable.

 

I was thinking of replacing it with a 3/32” 7x19 control cable instead. It’s rated at 920lbs strength vs. 1760lbs for the 1/8” cable. Would that be an acceptable solution? Any pitfalls?

 

Thanks,

Adam Molny

N181AM