Elevator bell crank

[william halford]

My partner and i just puchased a 51 170 After reading some of your web site, I feel we had to be a part of this groupe. Being my first 170 there is something strange going on in the tail with the elevator. With the elevator down or up the bell crank is tight . anything in between is very sloppy with a lot of side play. bearing and crank looks good..IS THIS NORMAL FOR ALL 170A MODEL ???? Any help would be very helpful...gary

[jon s blocker]

Although I have a B model and not an A, I am in the process of rebuilding, and have just cleaned up, regreased and remounted my elevator bellcrank. While I had it out everything checked out fine with the bearings and after a complete cleaning and proper repacking, it was remounted with a new pivot bolt and locking nut. I am very confident in its condition, and like yours it still has plenty of "play", in it if you move the bellcrank sideways. You can't move it up and down. I have checked and made sure the mounting bolt has the correct grip length on the shaft, and I also did the same maintainance to the bellcrank in front, with the same results. My aircraft has low time on the airframe and the pivot holes, (mounting bolt holes) are not oversized or worn, so I guess this is a long winded way of saying at least in my plane there is a good amount of side play in the elevator bellcrank assemblies. Good luck with you new plane, you will LOVE it.
Jon

[william halford]

Jon, thank you very much for your reply and answer.. You have just saved us a lot of time and money..

[H. Mark Smith]

I saw the strangest sight a few months ago. A C-170A took off on skis with a 12 foot aluminum boat underneath the fuselgage. IT was held tight to the fuselage with two 2" cargo straps. Not that I would try this, but it actuallflew pretty good. I seemed quite a bit slower than what this guy normally climbs out at , but it flew....A few days later, he returned so I guess it worked ok.....FYI for 170 people

[zero.one.victor]

Haven't you ever heard of a flying boat?

[wa4jr]

I'm sure this guy did his weight and balance computation...

[H. Mark Smith]

This same bird that hauled a 12 foot aluminum boat, well a short time after this event, he was taking off on a nice spring day, 4400 ft snow covered runway, he had airglas 2500 skis and WE SUSPECT the steel runners had frost. He had a heavy load in the plane and while it should have flown the accceleration was very slow and he WAITED too long to abort. In fact it appeared that he got about a foot in the air, clipped the right hand snow bank with a ski and this pulled him back down, and he slid off the runway. AS he went of he tried to turn because there is a big Steel fence in his path. The wings recieved damage from the willows hiting the leading edge, the tail got torn up, the gear bent back wrinkling the gear box, but the gear didn;t come completely off.
He sold the plane, bought another and is going again.
His old wrecked plane was purchsed buy a family member, repaired and is flying agian, still in the family....so that's good.In fact the family now has 3 Cessna 170's !! 2 on skis....
The 170 is a very sersatile airplane.....