Don, If you have a double nose fork, then the cable is necessary to keep the nose wheel high enough so you don't wipe it out by scrubbing on the ground , when landing in a crosswind.
The double nose fork is about 2" longer than the original , so the cable holds the nose wheel in the proper position, so you have sufficient clearance, when landing... Now, if the original nose sissors fender is still installed, then the cable holds the wheel where it should be, but the "fender" creates a lot of drag. It appears to me the proper thing to do is to remove the fender from the sissors - eliminating the drag. Later coupes used a forged sissors assy, without the fairing fender. If the coupe stearing linkage is out of rig, then the nose wheel and fender act as a rudder, causing the coupe to fly sideways......creating a lot of drag and poor performance. Removal of the fender fairing and rigging the nose wheel stearing so that it is straight when flying straight and level adds better than 5 mph to the coupes performance.... Some advocate the removval of the cable.....but this lets the nose wheel down too low, and if you land even with the controls full back, you are likely to "scrubb" off the nose wheel and assy, when landing in a cross wind. The issue here is not the extension of the strut, but the length of the extended strut including the wheel...... Regards, Harry Francis N93530 Blacksburg, VA.
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