Linda "IF I'm stuck with the painter's AI doing this (a) how long should the labor take, and (b) is there anywhere in our online resources that shows how? I've looked in the Service Manual and can't find anything. (Hartmut: is there anything on this in your photo collection?)"
Like previously said, the trim wire can be pushed into the housing like that. That takes one minute to do. But only if you are lucky and 1. the housing is not gummed up 2. the wire does not get stuck at the passage to the elevator I found that one can easily reuse the outer housing that lies inside the fuselage, from the control handle to the excite at the rear toward the elevator. That last part is more exposed to the elements, but luckily is detachable from the rest of the plane. When I replaced my trim wire I pushed the wire from the front to the first part of resistance. The wire was then at the crossover from the the fuselage to the rear and got stuck at the fitting. Unscrew the fitting, and the wire will come free. Insert the wire to the rear part and make sure that part ist oiled where ever you can oil spray at. It should make it through easily. The problem with old wires is that they rust and the rust forms an extra layer of oxide that make the wire thicker and hence more susceptible for sticking. If it does not go through with ease, use a good portion of the old wire as a cleaning pilot. I would do that from the rear then. By the way, I do not think that suddenly corrosion has hit your wire. I rather believe that some overspray hit the wire outer housing in the elevator part and since paint is dissolving grease and oil and also very thin, it will have made it into the housing where it creates some gummy glue that makes your wire stick. Maybe it is a good idea to use a solvent first that one sprays through the last piece of the housing to clean what ever has collected there. So this id for replacing the wire alone. Replacing the whole housing is a half days / full day job in my eyes, depending on the plane. One would have to disassemble the interior, one side panel of the sliding windows, crawl inside the fuselage and replace the attachment points there (the flexible housing goes through the tail cone in my Coupe). That is a lot of ugly work, but luckily it can be avoided in most cases. And last, no Linda, this job has not been recorded on www.Ercoupe.info - if you can , do a few pictures when you replace the wire with your mechanic. You can fly without a trim. It is a bit nerving, because you have to push down the yoke all the time, but for an half hour flight around the patch it is doable. Hartmut To: [email protected] From: [email protected] Date: Thu, 17 Dec 2009 18:18:23 -0800 Subject: [ercoupe-tech] trim cable wire When I took my plane to the painters (day before Thanksgiving) the trim was working fine. When I picked my plane up from the painters on Monday, the trim wasn't working. It felt stuck: the control handle bounced back when I tried to move it into position to (e.g.) trim nose down, instead of its normal movement. I took it back to him today. He said that when they'd put the control surfaces back on, he found the cable was stiff (rusty?) so they lubed it and then it worked, but after they finished the painting it rained for several days and (since I couldn't some get it in the rain), they put the plane outside the hangar (the next customer's plane had to go into the hangar for stripping). They figured it had rusted up again and was binding. So in front of me, the painter & his AI sprayed some lubricant on the tail end of the wire, where it comes out of its sheathing, took off the covering of the trim control handle at the other end, so the handle mechanism was exposed, then kept trying to force it to work. Long story short, they broke the trim wire right up near where it attaches to the trim control handle. (I'd guess it broke from metal fatigue of him repeatedly trying to force it loose using the control handle.) So of course they're saying, "The wire was old and rusty and you're better off replacing it with a new one." Well, now I don't have any choice but to do so! I ordered the wire itself from Skyport; it is not expensive, but the labor looks to be. The painter's AI said only "less than one day" to install it, and that "if it's less than 3 hours, [he] wouldn't believe it." The young mechanic who usually helps me at my home field isn't available (away for the holidays), and I haven't yet been able to reach the AI who usually does my annual so I don't know if he's in town. IF I'm stuck with the painter's AI doing this (a) how long should the labor take, and (b) is there anywhere in our online resources that shows how? I've looked in the Service Manual and can't find anything. (Hartmut: is there anything on this in your photo collection?) Linda N3437H (Sky Sprite) L.A. _________________________________________________________________ Windows Live: Keep your friends up to date with what you do online. http://www.microsoft.com/middleeast/windows/windowslive/see-it-in-action/social-network-basics.aspx?ocid=PID23461::T:WLMTAGL:ON:WL:en-xm:SI_SB_1:092010
