Control surfaces

[Doug Davis]

Threes been some past discussion about control surface slop, and I'd like to share this with the group.  In doing a  practice annual on our coupe yesterday ( I haven't done one in nearly 40 years), I found that the universals ( on the yoke behind the panel) were sloppy enough to cause the control slop we had experienced.  I also remembered come comments about the difficulty in repairing this condition.  As I looked at what would be necessary, I don't see the difficulty ( maybe someone can clarify this) . There seems to be room enough to work, and two pins to remove,(one forward and one aft of the universal) then by moving the wheel aft, the joint should fall in your hand.  Now not having  actually done this, there may be problems I don't readily see.  I also don't know if the universal can be repaired, or if a new one must be purchased from Skyport  at 187.10 apiece (wow) .  However how expensive is expensive.  A failure here could definitely ruin your day, and sloppy u-joints do fail. You could always grab the other wheel, but then the broken wheel would have to by necessity be pulled all the way back to make sure it didn't interfere with yoke travel. Definitely handlebar, but scary indeed. I also noticed that the "Boots" need replacing. if they separated also, the wheel definitely would be "loose". Fly happy Doug