DG Rudder AD - DONE! - Notes from my work

I just completed this AD on a DG-101G ELAN and wanted to let everyone
know what I went through to get it done. Maybe this will help others.

1) Talked with an A&I beforehand to supervise and sign off on the work
afterwards. He also watched the progress every step of the way.
2) I fastened the rudder peddles full forward with safety wire (or
string). This releases the pressure on the rudder cable tension
springs.
3) Looped a safety wire (or string) through the ruddle cable eyelets at
the rear of the airplane at the rudder. This prevents the ruddle
cables from disappearing (zing!) into the boom and requiring a fishing
expedition. I was forewarned about this trick.
3) Removed the split pins and castle nuts holding the ruddle cables to
the rudder cranks. Hint: Bag all the parts or put them back into the
original place.
4) Removed the split pin and castle nut at the bottom underside of the
rudder. There was one small washer in place between the nut and
bearing. This exposes the threaded shaft/pin which is a permanent
mounted in the rudder.
5) Removed the rudder by lifting vertically. There was a thin washer
on the pin of the top fitting which I almost missed buried in the
lubricant. Watch for it. The top bearing is permanently mounted n the
rudder.
6) The bracket was now exposed attached to the vertical fin of the
glider. I marked the top of the bracket "up". Removed the bracket
that all the fuss is about. This takes a 5mm allen (hex) wrench.
Cleaned up the bracket. Cleaned up the rudder, rudder box, etc.
7) With the A&I we scrutinized the peening of the bearing. It was
peened in 4 places top and bottom. It looked good but was it good
enough? Five people stood around pondering and then finally just
shrugged and walked away. The A&I re-peened the bearing for good
measure.
8) Re-mounted the bracket on the glider.

Now comes the fun part.

9) Re-mounted the rudder on the glider. This really takes two people
as you have to align the top and bottom pins at the same time. If one
pin had been slightly longer than the other this would have been easy.
Unfortunately they were the same length. Make sure to replace the top
thin washer.
10) The AD requires you to put two washers on the bottom. One is the
original small diameter washer which is next to the bearing and is
smaller than the diameter of the bearing. The new washer is larger
(24mm dia is called for but 16mm is allowed) and goes between the small
washer and the nut. We used a standard washer but had to drill out the
hole to 8mm (as the AD mentions). The idea of the larger washer is
that this makes it impossible for the bearing to ever fall out. I
put the two washers in place in the correct order (small on top, big on
the bottom) and loosely put the castle nut in place.
11) As warned about in the AD, the split pin hole no longer lines up
with the grooves of the castle nut. Also, we can't quite tell if the
larger washer is rubbing on the flanges of the lower bracket.
12) Off comes the rudder and the lower bracket. Placing the rudder on
a work bench, I put the bracket, washers and nut back on so we could
all get a good loook at the assembly. More pondering.
13) I reduced the size of the washer to prevent interference with the
bracket but still be larger than 16mm.
14) The split pin hole was marked at 90 degrees to the original hole
(and further down the threaded pin in the rudder) and then re-drilled
(as the AD says to do).
15) Re-mount the rudder. Put the washers and nut back in place. This
nut should be finger tight. Put in a new split pin.
16) Re-mount the rudder cables to the rudder. Put in new split pins.
17) Go fly.

That was all there was to it. Not as bad as it sounds. Buying a new
bracket from DG would not have shortened or simplified this process
much. Good luck. Let me know how it turns out for you.

- John