Teflon Hinge Pin Upgrade

I first noticed wear in my aileron hinges as tell-tale black streaks.  There wasn't appreciable play so I just made note of it.  Well, that eventually turned into noticeable wiggle.

I decided to upgrade to teflon hinge pins.  This pretty much stops the wear and ought to outlast the airframe.

I bought the kit from:

James Russell
Electric Shadows, Inc.
841 Old Gardiner Rd.
Sequim, WA 98382
USA

(817) 691-5465 mobile
(360) 797-0062 FAX

fshort@flash.net
electricshadowsinc.com - not really active at time of writing

The instructions provided are adequate-ish - but only in the sense that some things you need to do a couple of times to really get the nuances.  That was my experience with these things.

The kit consists of teflon tube and slightly undersize welding rod used as hinge pin material.  Basically, the original pin is replaced with a pin made from the new undersize pin riding inside the teflon tube liner.  The result is tight and smooth.

In short, installation instructions tell you to cut some teflon tube a bit more than twice the required length for a given pin.  You cut a slit lengthwise down enough of the tube so that the slit length is long enough to make it all the way through the hinge.  You now fold / roll the slit tube so that its OD fits inside the hinge.  Snake that through and grab the other end.  This takes a bit of doing.  For me, it made most sense to get it as far in as I could, then remove it and sort of re-fold or encourage the fold and try re-inserting it.  Forcing it resulted in raw fingers, ruined teflon tubing, and vulgarities bouncing off corrugated steel hangar walls.  Once the slit end of the tube is sticking out the other end of the hinge, insert the new undersize pin (which you have to cut to length & straighten) into the long unslit end of the teflon tube.  Now pull the slit end of the teflon while pushing the unslit end with the pin.  Secure the pin as usual.

After my first couple of hinges on the right aileron, things went MUCH more smoothly.

This is a worthwhile upgrade for anyone with wearing hinges.  Hell, with brand new hinges.  You'll never need to worry about 'em after this.

As a side note, James reached out to me asking if he could incorporate some of my feedback into his instructions.  Folks - this is the sort of vendor we should all hope to deal with.