Jabiru J450 Constructors Manual
General>Rod ends
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
19 of 343
General>Rod ends
It can truthfully be said that the rod ends are the sole connection between the pilot and the
control surfaces of your Jabiru.
A very important item of hardware indeed!
Given the vital role that each and every rod end performs in your Jabiru it is equally important
that you familiarise yourself with the correct method of connecting rod ends.
There are 2 parts to connecting a rod end: the
cable connection
and the
drive connection
.
Cable connection
All cable rod ends are
female rod ends, which is
to say that the cable (the
male end) is screwed into
the rod end (the female
end) the cable length can
be adjusted by screwing
the rod end further onto
the cable or further off
the cable, and then the
cable is fixed to the rod
end by means of a jam nut on the cable that locks the threads from turning.
There must be enough cable thread length in the rod end to provide strength and security, and
each female rod end has a small hole, called the
safety hole
, part-way along one side through
which the cable threads
must
be visible – if you cannot see the cable threads through the
safety hole, then you
must
not
fly the aircraft
until adjustments have been made so that the
cable threads are visible through the safety hole.
This is of the utmost importance and cannot be overstated!
Drive connection
Most of the rod ends on your Jabiru are driven by a 3/16” bolt through the spherical bush, and
they must be connected in the following manner: between the rod end and the drive lever, fit
one 3/16” flat washer (or more in the case of the flap drive arms – details in the
Flaps
task).
Between the rod end and the retaining nut (or the head of the bolt, depending on which way
the bolt is fitted) fit one ¼” flat washer (one size larger than the bolt).
The purpose of this larger flat
washer is that should the spherical
bush in the rod end fail, the large
washer will provide a margin of
safety by preventing the rod end
from leaving the drive bolt. In the
photo at right you can see the way
that the washers are fitted.
In practical terms, should a rod end fail internally in flight the rod end will still remain
connected to the drive bolt and the control will continue to function.
Thus the correct fitting of the flat washers to rod ends is extremely important.
Jam nut
Safety
hole
Rod end
Cable
Spherical
bush