N546RV
Well Known Member
A few weeks back I strung the rudder cables on my -8, and this past week I got the rudder travel set correctly and finally hooked everything up tonight. Which of course meant it was time to climb in, make airplane noises, and try out the pedals. In the course of this, I noticed two things:
Chafing
It was immediately obvious that there was a chafing/rubbing noise anytime I moved the rudder pedals. I went looking for a particular point of contact and I can't seem to pinpoint a single chafe point. Seems like it's coming from the system in general, or maybe inside the tailcone it's just hard to pinpoint noises.
Some searching here indicates that contact with the snap bushings isn't abnormal, and it doesn't seem like the cable is making "hard contact" anywhere, but still, the noise seems wrong to me. I also can feel the drag/resistant when I use the pedals. Not sure if this is normal or not. Would love to hear some perspectives.
Pedal assembly play
I have the "in-flight" adjustable pedals. My expectation was that this assembly would contact the airplane in four spots: the forward and aft mount points for the slide bar (where it bolts in) and the nylon bearing blocks at the left and right ends of the rudder pedal pivot. However, the nylon blocks do not, in fact, contact the floor, and so the entire pedal assembly is free to rotate a bit on the slide bar (in the roll axis, to help clarify).
My first thought while sitting in the plane was that I could put some spacers or other material under the blocks, but now that I think about it, a tight fit between those blocks and the floor could impede adjusting the pedals. So here again, I'm not quite sure what the expectations are, and I'd love to hear perspectives.
Chafing
It was immediately obvious that there was a chafing/rubbing noise anytime I moved the rudder pedals. I went looking for a particular point of contact and I can't seem to pinpoint a single chafe point. Seems like it's coming from the system in general, or maybe inside the tailcone it's just hard to pinpoint noises.
Some searching here indicates that contact with the snap bushings isn't abnormal, and it doesn't seem like the cable is making "hard contact" anywhere, but still, the noise seems wrong to me. I also can feel the drag/resistant when I use the pedals. Not sure if this is normal or not. Would love to hear some perspectives.
Pedal assembly play
I have the "in-flight" adjustable pedals. My expectation was that this assembly would contact the airplane in four spots: the forward and aft mount points for the slide bar (where it bolts in) and the nylon bearing blocks at the left and right ends of the rudder pedal pivot. However, the nylon blocks do not, in fact, contact the floor, and so the entire pedal assembly is free to rotate a bit on the slide bar (in the roll axis, to help clarify).
My first thought while sitting in the plane was that I could put some spacers or other material under the blocks, but now that I think about it, a tight fit between those blocks and the floor could impede adjusting the pedals. So here again, I'm not quite sure what the expectations are, and I'd love to hear perspectives.
