Elevator cable tension

I am totally wrong my tensiometer is in lbs.

As far as I know, and this is from experience with both sailing rigging and working with an experienced A&P-IA on my Ercoupe, rigging tension isn't measured in inch pound or in foot pounds. It's not a measurement of torque, it's tension.

Mine came to me pretty close to the stated value I used (75kg on a European tensiometer) and my A&P discussed the unusually high load on these cables as being proper... and more or less unique to Ercoupes in aircraft of this size.

I imagine that 8-15 lb tension would be absurdly loose so I recommend getting a truly expert opinion before trying that.

So if you are correct and the 160-190 needs to be divided by 12 to get pounds. Why would the next statement be “excessive rigging loads should be avoided to avoid damage to the fuselage structure?

I checked the cable tension prior to removal @ 70 ft pounds. They were very loose.

160-190 is a crazy high number, 8.33 to 15.8 foot pounds is a ridiculously low number.

I have installed the cables. I will check the 20 degrees of elevator up and do a final tension check and safety the turnbuckles tomorrow.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

That is in inch LBSD or 8.33 to 15.8 foot LBS

Although sparse, the service manual from Univair gives some good information on servicing your Alon. A bit pricey as usual, but a good resource.
The rigging section does give information on rigging the elevator. The tension values are confirmed. here.     

Keith, I ran into this issue with my Ercoupe. The normal aircraft cable tensionometers didn't go high enough, and an a high-range tensionometer would have been incredibly expensive.

However, I fell back onto previous experience with sailboats. Their wire rigging tends to be in the hundreds of foot-pound range and there are some good, cheaper tensionometers if you're willing to settle for +/- 5% accuracy.

www.spinlock.co.uk/en-GB/uk/products/rig-sense#
They make one model for 3/32" to 3/16" cable, and another model for 3/16" to 5"16" cable. Defender Marine is a good source but honestly they're not that hard to find.

I like that one because it just sits there clamped onto the cable while you adjust the turnbuckle, watching the resulting tension change in real time. It is calibrated in kg but the conversion is no big deal... ! was shooting for 72-81 kg tension so I just dialed it in to 75 kg on the scale.