At the rudder end, you can bolt the cables down tight to stop wearing them. If you don't like the resultant cable flexing, you could use a double bushing, one inside the other, to keep wear on the bushings only. Lubrication, good fabrication, and material selection could make it go a long long way. As in bronze inner bushing, nylon outer. Available at most hardware stores.

The pedal end sounds like a nut change. Not all locking nuts are the same height. You can obtain shallow ones by looking around and replace the CLC ones with them. At worse, an aircraft supply store will have very shallow crimped type titanium locking nuts. You could also consider grinding a grove for the cable in what you've got now.

The support block needs be no higher then would keep it from hitting the deck. In fact, if you don't mind it hitting your deck and flopping around, you don't need it anyhow. Though it makes life much easier to have one.

As for price gouging, have you gone to an auto dealer and checked on the price for a part?

> I have mounted the Feathercraft rudder on my S&G and I really
> dislike the Feathercraft mounts. First the kit came without an acceptable
> wire mount to the wings of the rudder. All that came in the "kit"
> was a lock nut, bolt and washer. The wire was to be swaged to the
> bolt/nut/washer assembly without any type of bushing or protection
> for the wire around the bolt. Wear is apparent with just moving lightly.
>

> The foot pedals are mounted through the hull with bolts and the
> nuts provided. The "instructions" from CLC said to grind
> down the bolt. Okay. I completed that, and the bolt was flush with
> the nut. Unfortunately the clearance between the sliding rail and
> the fixed mount does not offer sufficient clearance for the 1/16th
> cable to clear the ground-flush nut/bolt assmbly. The cable on the
> sliding pedal is just looped through the threaded hole and that is
> sufficient for the mount. The problem is that the rail RUBS on the
> cable and does NOT move freely as I know that it should. I have already
> ground flush to the nut so the problem is with the system, instructions
> or CLC.

> Finally, the "instructions" from CLC recommend placing
> a block to support the rudder after it is pulled from the water. Okay.
> But that is the worst place to try and epoxy something on. The deck
> is already crowded with the control cables, retraction/deployment
> ropes and now to add the block, with epoxy, to the deck. The block
> and cradle are about 2.5" tall and there is really no easy way
> to connect the block to the shear clamps without getting in the way
> of the retraction rope. So I am left with a block epoxied to the deck
> that is 2.5" tall and will be broken off when it is first bumped.
> And the questions are:

> 1)What type of connections are others using with the cable/pedal/rudder
> horn?

> 2) Does anyone actually use a block epoxied to the deck?

> 3) How can something cost $179 and have such a bad, very bad,
> hardware package? Brian.

>