Trim cable

Flown, tested and working perfectly. silky smooth trim makes flying so much nicer. Now on to the next squawk, the list never ends with old airplanes but hey sure are fun to fly. New side windows from Wag-Aero are next on the list. 

SUCCESS, thanks Matt, good ideas, I’ve restored 11 Japanese motorcycles. Just kept doing the roto-rooter thing with solvents and lubes. It feels like dog dung when you use just the wire, but once you hook up the lever and redo the conduit anchors at the ends, all is good, it is now about 1954 in the crud/ function time line, way better than what I had yesterday,
Time to double check all, do some pattern work to make sure I’m flying a kitten and not wrestling Gilly’s bull. Now let’s get rid of this frost every night and 45 degree days, c’ mon it’s May already, time to fly.
Rustypilot has the rust out of the trim system, now I must get the rust out of my head and butt.

You could try something that I did to a throttle cable on my Goldwing, which is made of unobtainiam. I clamped a section of clear tubing over the end and then filled it with penatrating oil, a column of 2inches of oil, I kept the tube as vertical as possible and let gravity draw it down into the cable. I let soak over night. That was not enough to free it, so on to step 2, I attached a air hose fitting and applied very low pressure, 5lbs or less, and let it set. I came back a while later and the oil that had been in the tube was gone, I refilled and repeated, this time with higher pressure, I did this until I got oil to flow thru very quickly, I then flushed the cable with solvent, then dried with compressed air, then I filled the tube with a good cable lube and forced it into the cable with air pressure. Works as smooth as silk now.

Mine just stopped working when temps got cold. Suspect 75 years of old grease in the spiral wound conduit. Pulled the trim wire out and cleaned it, applied light silicone penetrating lube and some PB blaster on the portions of the conduit I could reach to loosen up the internal crud. After I reinstalled it. Just seems to have too much friction.Figure I have it back to about 1985 staus in the timeline of crud build up.
Really don't want to pull the conduit, I don't fit in the tail cone to disconnect the conduit attach points. Why would I do that? Seems removal and soaking the conduit in a tub of gasoline/solvent is the only sure fire way to really clean and remove 75 years of gunk. Wish I had a gun bore brush to push and pull through it, but with all those stupid 90 degree turns in the conduit, that isn't an option. I like the idea of the solid wire control and mine is still good, so I will continue to run my wire in and out of the conduit until I achieve satisfactory function, New replacement trim control is the twisted or braided wire but just doesn't seem to me that should be strong enough at either end to resist folding over or bending. And so the trim control wire catheterization will continue. Tiny Roto-Rooter needed, old age. old grease and dirt is the enemy.
Keep them flying, keep cleaning, greasing and replacing worn out parts. Contribute to the A&P/AI college/retirement fund, better than giving it to the taxman.
Rustypilot.

To thread the sleeve through the horizontal stabilizer, it has to be removed. There are only four bolts, but two are hard to reach. And you will probably have to relieve the tension on the rudder cables.

My trim cable is not working tried to lube it , if the cable needs to be replaced how big of a job is it.