Looking for Flap Cables

For what it's worth, the reason I made my comment is because I've changed flap cables myself, I'm an AME here in Canada,. On one Skymaster, visually inspecting the cables before they were removed showed nothing. Once removed one cable had around 40-50% of the cable strands broken. There was no way of seeing this. With half the cable strands broken I question how much strength is left in the rest of the cable.

[Ernie Martin]

Tony, that changes everything. Question: it was a thorough visual, with flashlight and cotton swab/rag? And showed nothing, no fraying of the cotton? If that is the case, then I retract my prior message, and I'm sure Don would too.

Ernie

[rick bell]

just a thought - i would think that cycles induce wear, base on that theroy low time and
less cycles would produce less wear. with one exception, some a/c had sheet metal screws that were too long and rubbing on the cable. year back i checked that and mine were. just replace the screw with a shorter one. it did not indicate any wear or broken strands; but that
was with 800.0 now it's 2000.0.

one could always drop the flaps well below the 160 maybe at the low end to reduce cable
tension and you really don't need them on takeoff, just a thought.

Originally Posted by Ernie Martin

Tony, that changes everything. Question: it was a thorough visual, with flashlight and cotton swab/rag? And showed nothing, no fraying of the cotton? If that is the case, then I retract my prior message, and I'm sure Don would too.

In this particular case we were changing the cables on spec. It was a few years ago so I can't remember the exact details. If I recall correctly, I gave them a visual inspection and ran my finger over what I could access and didn't find any problem. Once the cables were removed we were quite surprised to see them as bad as they were.

When I did my skymaster it was pretty much the same thing. Although the cables weren't frayed as bad.

[SkyMac]

Hi Everyone

Just keeping you all informed on what I find as we continue with the project, there has been a lot of information recently regarding flap cables and replacement.

Having just removed cables and bell cranks from L/H wing in preparation for replacing the cables. Even though the flap cables functioned and showed little signs of wear prior to aircraft dissasembly, a small number of internal wires were broken - TTAF 1958hrs. No record of previous replacement.

Regards
Dave

[hharney]

I cannot find any part #1460100-307 flap cable. Don has none and all the Cessna sites are out of stock. Does anyone know of any available???

[Aeromx]

Try Beechhurst Industries in Whitehurst, NY. They can legally fabricate the cables you need. Talk to Frank. www.beechhurst.com

Good Luck,
Tim / Aeromx

[billsheila]

Would someone with access to a parts manual happen to have the part numbers for all 4 cables? If it matters my machine is 1965 serial number 0031. Thanks. I am intending to contact these guys in NY as well...I wonder if we can get into some group buy opportunity where they come off a bit against Cessna prices?

Thanks,
Bill

[hharney]

Originally Posted by hharney

I cannot find any part #1460100-307 flap cable. Don has none and all the Cessna sites are out of stock. Does anyone know of any available???

Checking the steel part number it is available. The stainless steel is out of stock but steel is available.

[billsheila]

Herb; Do you know when they say "carbon steel" if that is by default a galvanized steel cable (like the article on wear differences discusses?). I found some early failure reports from a Canadian website that discuss failures on 336's (per what you mentioned to me before) and these were the carbon steel variety not the stainless steel, so it would seem that perhaps either one will fail? Here is one way to look at it, that if these are simply high wear items that have a known failure mode (apparently with either type of steel) then one might as well just replace them often and use the cheaper part! On that point, I seem to be getting odd price data, even on the carbon steel variety. I had one quote where the
"-8" variety were like $175 and the "-7" were multiples of that at $534 both apparently available. This doesn't make sense because perhaps other than length they have the same fittings on them etc. I can't imagine it costs hundreds of dollars more for 50 inches of longer carbon steel cable? When I spoke to Beechhurst, they claimed there was nothing wrong legally with using their replacement cables (and they had appropriate paperwork to verify proper mil-spec construction) and they are made to order in either carbon steel or stainless steel, but you can't order them directly they basically make them to match what you send them as replacements. If you end up ordering from Beechhurst let me know and I will order a carbon steel set alongside yours. Thanks. Bill