Finally! I have successfully connected the horizontal stabilator cables with proper tension! As you may recall, I had problems after running the fore & aft cables and discovered that I couldn’t place the turnbuckles with the requisite minimum number of visible threads without going way over the recommended tension limit for the cables. Double & Triple checking the routing failed to turn up a mis-routed cable (felt to be the most likely culprit). Longer turnbuckles were obtained, but (as predicted by one of the experts on VAF) they were too long and couldn’t achieve the required tension.
The reluctant conclusion was that the cables were too short, just due to statistical variation of acceptable tolerances. Gus an Joe at Van’s were pretty cool with it and sent me a replacement set of cables. It took 2 or 3 weeks until I had sufficient time to get to the project (a minor event—moving out to the airport intervened), but I finally had some time.
I replaced the rear cables first, as they were easier. I had hoped that that would be sufficient, but there was no noticeable improvement when I re-connected the turnbuckles. Sigh. Off came the seat pan (all 60+ screws). I initially started to use a string to pull each new cable through the same routing that I had used for the originals, but thing got tangled around the pulleys so I ended up completely removing & replacing. I did have to remove the pulleys, too. I got everything threaded, loosely joined up with the turnbuckles, reinstalled the pulleys and finally reinstalled the seat pan. Viola! The cables tightened nicely to 45 # and there were only 0 or 1 threads showing (The Book calls out <3). Lastly, I maneuvered the locking pins into place and can sign off this page!
H. Stab Cables with Turnbuckles
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