The International Cessna^® 170 Association

We looked at the flaps yesterday…. they have slings inside the wings that provide the up-tension, each flap has a separate cable that goes to a turnbuckle just above the rear passengers heads, these turnbuckles join to one cable that is routed through pulley's back under the floor to the Johnson bar flap actuator. It appears to me that there should be a spring somewhere from the Johnson bar to the single pulley to add tension to the system counterbalancing the spring in the flap itself. What is happening is that the actuator arm at the flap is way to loose in one direction and is scraping on the aileron cable… this is happening on both sides, but the left is a problem and the cause of the noise, rumbling feel when you put the flaps down (the left is worse than the right and the reason the wind blew them independently). I've included pictures for you of the left… you can see that the ball end of the cable is loose allowing the bracket to drag on the aileron cable.