routing good; tension still too high
BigJohn pointed me in a good direction of verifying that the cables were in fact tracking through the correct holes, since a simple mis-routing would very easily generate the differences in lengths that correspond to my current dilemma. I really had hoped that was the problem.
Alas, I could find no routing errors by inspection. As an aide to identification, I temporarily moved the rudder cable far enough forward such that the plastic sleeve (aft end) was within the space spanned by F-1207B and where the turnbuckles are located. Having positively identified the rudder cable as being in the correct location, I turned to the stabilator cables themselves. I removed the turnbuckle and pulled the upper (right) cable back to the pulley and verified that the slack rear cable was in the upper holes of F-1207B and F-1206A and that the empty holes were in fact the upper holes in F-1204A and F-1204D. This confirmed to me that the cables were in the correct runs.
The upper (right) forward cable was re-run back to the turnbuckle and I verified that each hole had only 1 cable in it. The F-1227 seat ramp cover was re-installed and the cables were re-tightened such that only 3 threads showed on each end of each turnbuckle. The resulting tension was off the scale of my tensionometer, approximately 100-120# by extrapolation. The resulting feel of the stick was far too stiff. The turnbuckles were loosened back to 45# tension on each cable. The upper cable has 8 threads showing (both ends) while the lower cable has 5 (both ends.)
I'm reaching the conclusion voiced by Mich48041, that I may simply have short cables. If that is the case, replacing them would be a haphazard approach since the replaced cables may also be too short. I would like opinions on using a longer turnbuckle to achieve both tension and adequate thread count.
Specifically, MS21251-B5S (provided) is 2.25 inches long, while a -B5L is 4.00 in length. The extra length of the -B5L would not result in encroachment of the barrel against the flare on the cables when the cables are positioned properly. This was verified by removing 1 cable from each turnbuckle, placing the turnbuckle at the point where 5 threads were showing, then advancing it 21 turns (7/8" at 24 threads/in) and verifying no interference. The longer barrels would result in having all of the threads from the cable termini within the barrels, thus 0 would be showing, and 0 is not more than 3.
Does anybody see a problem with this solution that I'm not seeing? Any other suggestions on sources of error with my build?
As always, thanks in advance,
-dbh