Trim wire replacement has been accomplished, thanks to all of your advice (and with the help of my handyman's strength & tools). The old wire itself was only lightly rusted, and only toward the back; the last few inches of the housing rotated around it freely by hand, however the wire just wouldn't budge at first. Following your collective advice, both ends of the wire were cut square, then rounded with a file &/or sandpaper, so it wouldn't snag in case we had to work it up & back. Then copious amounts of lithium grease were applied to both front end & back end, and also in the middle by opening the fairing Hartmut pointed out between tail cone & horiz. stab. and unscrewing the fitting between the 2nd and 3rd segments of the housing. I found a version of lithium grease that comes in an aerosol can with a long pipette which turned out to be great for shooting the grease farther up the housing, in addition to using the regular lithium grease from a tube.
He worked the old wire up and back using vise grips for just a couple of minutes and then he was able to pull the old wire out the back. Interestingly, as it came out, we could feel a couple of tougher spots, and there were distinct right-angle "bends" in the wire in a couple of places after removal, about 1'-2' from its back end, while the rest of the wire curled up into the expected circular coils. I found this language (in Ercoupe Service Memorandum No. 38, Sec. 7 (e)), with regard to installing trim wire conduit and attaching the elevator to the stabilizer: "Care must be taken not to pivot elevator beyond 80 degrees up, as this will kink wire conduit." So that is what I now believe caused this problem: when the paint shop was reinstalling the elevator, I believe they must have kinked the trim wire &/or trim wire conduit, so that the trim wire could not move up and back freely, and gave the appearance of being frozen in place. (or as the painter claimed, "rusted" in place) To my surprise, it was relatively easy to push the new wire in from the rear (again, greasing it every couple of inches), despite the presumed kink or crimp in the housing. When I saw the bends in the old wire, I really expected I'd have to have the wire housing replaced, too. But the new wire went into it ok. Then we attached the front and back ends of the new wire as prescribed in Service Memorandum 38, Section 11(b), doing the front end first. Getting the back end attachment just right, and the trim & elevator in the proper relation to the horiz. stab., using a straight edge, was a little tricky. I decided to leave a few inches of extra wire as a "tail" at the back, just in case it's needed when my AI inspects upon his return. It flew just fine on the way back to my home airport. I might want just slightly more nose-down trim ability, but this wasn't bad. Removing the old wire & installing the new wire took around 90 min. by 2 amateurs. For the sake of those who may come after, I should mention that attaching the front end of the new wire to the trim control handle mechanism takes place in very tight quarters: the heads of the tools need to be tiny. It was a good thing that my handyman had several sizes of vise grips and of wire cutters, since we needed the smallest of each of those that he had. I also took my digital camera and will have a few stills to add to Hartmut's collection on this subject. Once again, a big Thank You to the many Tech List folks who jumped in to help on this!! Linda N3437H (Sky Sprite) L.A.
