So when I built out the in-flight adjustable rudder pedal assembly a few weeks back, I made the mistake of cutting the release cable too short. Since there was no urgent need to fix that, I simply put the needed repair parts on my shopping list. Meanwhile, last week I discovered a number of parts I needed to replace, which got my shopping list to a point where it felt worthwhile to pony up for the shipping. My order from Van’s showed up yesterday, so tonight I set about fixing up the rudder pedals.
Basically, I ordered all the parts needed to make a new release assembly; the cable + latch center, six aluminum spacers, and two steel endplates. While I was looking at the old stuff tonight, I noticed that the endplates on the current release assembly were already rusting, so I decided to prime the new endplates before assembling. Through some kind of miracle, the rattle-can epoxy primer I used on the gear legs last weekend was still spraying (despite the claimed pot life of 48 hours), so I used that on the endplates, figuring it was a little more durable than the regular Napa stuff. Besides, the epoxy was expensive, and it’s nice to extract every last bit of it I can.
After letting the primer dry a bit, I riveted together the new assembly and installed it. This time I didn’t trim the release cable at all – it’s a bit long, but I’ll take that over playing chicken with getting the length right again.
While I was working the pedal assembly, I also noticed that the slide bar was rusting where it’s just bare metal. I don’t want to put any kind of heavy grease here, since when I’m flying in jeans or other long pants, they’re sure to make contact with the slide bar and get nasty, but obviously leaving it bare wasn’t going to work at all. Instead, after scrubbing off all the surface rust, I got out my trusty can of CLP from the gun cleaning box and applied a light coat. It works for keeping the guns from rusting without getting them oily, it ought to work just as well here.
Josie has been busy this week, so no more fuselage riveting so far, but hopefully tomorrow night we can get back to it.