I got a bunch more work done today. The first event, which took over two hours, was to redo the prop governor cable attachment to the prop governor. I bought an Aero Technologies PCU5000X prop governor, as part of a group buy organized on the Van’s Air Force Forums. I had assumed that the back of the governor would be the same as other common prop governors, which all seem to the same bolt pattern. I’ve got a Vans prop governor cable bracket, that bolts on the back of the prop governor. It turned out the PCU prop governor has a slightly different bolt pattern, so you need to slot two of the holes on the bracket (more info). And, the radius on the inner edge of that bracket interferes with a raised area on the prop governor, so you either need to remove a bunch of material on the bracket, or put a spacer under it. I elected to use a spacer. Then, you find that you can’t get the bolt in with the bolt head forward, and there isn’t room for the nut if the bolt head is aft. I initially attempted to solve that problem my moving the governor cable rod end to the other side of the control arm on the governor, but that meant the rod end was at quite an angle, which didn’t seem like a good long term solution.

Last night, I woke up in the middle of the night with the realization that I could solve the bolt clearance problem by removing the control arm on the governor. That would allow me to insert the bolt with the bolt head forward. The problem with this approach is that you must ensure that you put the control arm back on with the same orientation on the shaft.

Here are the steps required to do this, in case anyone else has this problem:

  1. Figure out how far the rod end needs to be threaded on the governor cable end. In my case, I threaded the rod end almost all the way in.
  2. Ensure there are alignment marks on the control arm and the shaft, to help you reassemble them with the same orientation.
  3. Bend the locking tabs that secure the bolt in the control arm.
  4. Remove the bolt in the control arm.
  5. Slide the control arm along the shaft a little ways.
  6. Grab the end of the spring that pushes on the control arm, and disconnect it from the control arm.
  7. Remove the control arm.
  8. Insert the bolt through the rod end and the control arm. You should have a large capture washer next to the bolt head, then one of those tiny little rod end clearance washers. There should be another tiny rod end clearance washer between the rod end and the control arm.
  9. Put the control arm back on the shaft, but don’t slide it all the way one yet.
  10. Put the spring back on the control arm. I used a loop of safety wire to pull on the end of the spring.
  11. Slide the control arm back in place, and check your alignment marks to confirm you have it properly lined up on the shaft.
  12. Insert and torque the bolt on the control arm. It has a small head, but is actually a 3/16” bolt, so 25 in-lb is a good torque value.
  13. Bend the tabs to lock the bolt in place.



This afternoon I got a bunch of other details done, but there is still several days of work left. It looks like the warm spell will last at least until Thursday, so I'm taking the next two days off too.