The International Cessna^® 170 Association

Today's preflight yielded an oddity - split flaps. Seems the rightwing flap cable frayed and gave up the ghost. I'm glad it happened on the ground and not on short final.

I suspect that if one went, the others are thinking about it, so I plan to have all the cables replaced during the upcoming annual. Any guidance on the additional time to recable & rerig?

Also, are there cable kits that are prebundled? I suspect that there are minor differences plane-to-plane, but a C-170 kit would be a nice thing to get all as one rather than cobbling items together.

Thank you -

Richard

One of the better cable suppliers is McFarlane.
http://www.mcfarlane-aviation.com/

Sometimes I receive an odd complaint that the cables they've ordered don't fit, but it virtually always involves airplanes that have been rebuilt from wrecks or assembled from several airframes, and don't have the correct/standard control cable set ups.
Therefore, make certain you know your serial number when ordering, and be certain your airplane hasn't been improperly modified and not documented.
At least McFarlane has been cheerful about returns and remanufacturing a cable that fits.

Richard, I just replaced my right flap cable during the recent annual, I had about three strands left, mine was frayed just at the clevis for the right flap, see picture at http://www.sandhillaviation.com/flapcable.jpg . I bought the cable from Mcfarlane, very happy with the price and quality. I plan on changing out the rest of my cables within the next year or so.
I am kind of glad the cable was bad, this promted me to check the other cables and rig, found out that I was not reaching the up elevator stops by 5 deg. and also short on nose up trim. oh flaps, rudder and ailerons were out of wack too. Allthough I only flew the airplane 5 hours after purchase prior to the annual, when I flew last weekend soon as I was rolling down the runway I could feel the differance, and picked up a few mph too in cruise.
Best wishes,

I found a snag on my right rudder cable. Can I remove the turnbuckle barrel and pull the cable through the rear pulley with some string attached, or should I plan on crawling into the cone? I know the front end of the cable will be lots of fun, but I am no longer the size and age to enjoy crawling back there.
Dave

I don't think you will be able to pull the rudder cable through the two pulleys in the tailcone. With the turn barrel off you should be able to pull the cable through the phenolic fairleads in the station 108 bulkhead or aft wall of the baggage area. nick

I just completed a MacFarlane set of cables. There were a few differences. In the kit I recieved, PN's -107 and -109 were reversed. Probably an accident. Those are for the elevator trim. Also, the turnbuckle location was changed to the doorpost rather than the belly for the flaps. All you have to do is eliminate the turnbuckle eye from the pile and re-assemble. Also, the bolt for the direct cable attach is too big and needs to have a shorter one or a couple of washers added because of the elimination of the turnbuckle eyes.

If you feel McFarlane made any errors, no matter how small, bring it to their attention so they can look into it. Seemingly small errors are really not acceptable. Their parts are FAA-PMA and are supposed to be exact.
(Actual Scenario I've recently advised on: New McFarlane cables don't have same fittings and/or lengths as the cables being removed. Customer complains. McFarlane confirms their parts are correct, and offers a no-additional-cost solution based upon the actual configuration of the customer's airplane. It later is discovered the customer's airplane is a previously unknown/undocumented re-build from several wrecked fuselages, two of which were A models and one a B. Two flap cables were "field manufactured" and do not conform to any offical part number.)
The owner had previously thought his airplane was never damaged/never altered.

gahorn wrote:Actual Scenario I've recently advised on: ..... later is discovered the customer's airplane is a previously unknown/undocumented re-build from several wrecked fuselages, two of which were A models and one a B.

Gee George you mean there might be another plane like mine out there.

N9149A wrote:

gahorn wrote:Actual Scenario I've recently advised on: ..... later is discovered the customer's airplane is a previously unknown/undocumented re-build from several wrecked fuselages, two of which were A models and one a B.

Gee George you mean there might be another plane like mine out there.

Ha! Bruce! You may not be as unique as you thought (except perhaps in the U.S.! The "other" airplane is in the U.K. If anyone thinks the FAA is hard to get along with,...they've simply not ever dealt with the Brits.!)

We know how hard it is to find good suppliers, and heartbreaking it is when they go out of business. I replaced all my control cables with a McFarlane kit during my first annual, and most recently replaced a gimpy mixture control with one of their industrial-grade vernier mixture assemblies.

I like it! It's very solid, and I don't have the nagging feeling that I might break it while leaning (the one I got when I bought the bird was a little toy of a thing). Now it's pull or twist, whatever I wish. Leaning is a lot less exciting to passengers as I no longer halve the RPM while attempting to reduce fuel flow.

I like to support good vendors, and McFarlane's been superb for me.

RT

Concerning split flaps... my airplane has a 337 from the early 50's asking the FAA (or was it CAA?) for permission to perform a split flap flight experiment. The owner was granted permission with altitude stipulations and flight over populated areas stipulations. I have no idea why this was done, but my airplane is still here so it must be controllable. The original owner was some Air Force Colonel (or was it Air Corp?). I have always thought this an unexplained oddity.

Question: Can't an IA manufacture the control cables? I would think he could (mine were).
David

Yes, cables may be owner-produced.

Brings up a interesting topic. If one cable breaks, will one flap stay down or will they both retract?