Warbird Information Exchange

This past weekend I was preparing a friends T-6 rudder and elevators for recover and while removing the elevator tab hinge mounts I found lock washers under the head of the attach bolts. For you non-mechanics this means the fiber lock nutplates were worn out. Even though the T-6 doesn't fly as fast as a P-51, it's still scary.

A better solution would have been to safety wire the heads of the bolts. That would have at least been a positive lock. Lockwashers are not a viable solution, especially for something likely to see vibration.

Still, the best solution is to replace the nutplates, even if that means recovering the control surface.

As posted in the main hangar-
I've found more issues of wear and cracks in T-6 tabs and their attachment components than any other of the A/C.
The arm the the pushrod attach to is like 1/8" steel and is riveted to an Alum rib that is .025 or so. This will work and open the hole around the rivet. The arm will show movement then. The tabs have a small bearing pressed into an Alum casting and its riveted to a rib in the same fashion and will lessen in the same way. I've also seen the false spar the tab attach brackets bolt on to crack near the nut plates.

Added notes-
I've a pile of worn out tabs upstairs.
On the SNJ-3 the Navy added a doubler as a single leg angle on the nut plate areas on the Rudder as a re-enforcement. Done at Corpus Christy.

_________________
Rich Palmer

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Thanks for the info 51fixer.