The International Cessna^® 170 Association

Replaced my rudder cables and trying to get the fairleads back in place. Does anyone have any tips or tricks? I've dropped them a couple times and have to crawl in the tail as far as I can and use a shop vac to retrieve them. Seems less than ideal.

Did a search. I don't think I'm interested in pulling my whole tail off right now. So, that's off the table. Additionally, I've seen two examples of inspection panels cut in as posted in one of the older rudder cable topics...but if I can get these back in, it would negate the need...and that's not a quick fix if it needs to be legal...

Drilling the rivets for the fairlead bracket and replacing with nuts/bolts. This seems to be the "preferred" way to do this - after reading this in a few threads, I went out and looked at mine - the right side appears to be pop-rivets or cherrymax while the left side appears to be original - both old since they're painted over and my paint is ancient.

Any tips or tricks to get these in while they're still riveted in place? If not, and the best option is to drill the rivets out for the brackets, any tips or important info here?

So still in the process of replacing the cables I’m guessing. I’ve worked through the cable relief holes with 1/4 inch snap-on swivel gear. You can pull the cable out enough to assemble the fairlead then slide it forward into position and secure with screws and nuts (drilled out the rivets). Then again if the tail hasn’t been off in thirty or more years then I might be tempted to do so and refresh all the attach hardware. There’s a bit that’s hard to full see when assembled so its a risk to discovering things but then again maybe its better finding out things sooner than later.

I've got a spare set of mounting brackets (p/n 0412142) and the fairleads slide in without any problem. But the brackets on my fuselage have a smaller diameter; it's an interference fit. I thought using a modified cable hose clamp pliers might help press them in but my pair didn't quite have the reach to span both the length of the fairlead and the bracket. What worked for me was lubing the fairleads with DC-4 and then joining them with tape around the cable. (An o-ring or two would work in place of the tape). Then, using the smallest flare nut crows foot attached to a long extension, push/tap the fairleads into position. Once the fairleads are started in the hole the tape can be removed. While I don't think it makes any difference, this is the opposite direction from what the C-140A IPC shows these to be installed. While I couldn't exert enough pressure to squeeze the fairlead in, using a 12" long hemostat did work well for reaching the fairlead through the rudder cable exit hole on the opposite side.

To consolidate some of the scattered info regarding these "#6 fairleads", the C-170A IPC lists them with p/n 0510120, The 195 Factory shows a plastic fairlead half with a p/n of 0310266 and a clip p/n 040108-1. Elsewhere on this website is p/n S338-10 for a fairlead half.