[Graeme Smith]

I could not find the thread that showed a damaged tail rotor slider end support so I will start this.

 Some 20 years ago I was the RW rep here in Australia, during that time I found that after the tail rotor slider rails had been installed and the boom skin cut out to clear the pitch control mechanism that the weight of the tail rotor itself, (without the supporting boom skin,) flexed the slider rail down somewhat and thus allowed the tail rotor to have some up and down movement, I considered that was an undesirable issue so I came up with this simple mod. I cannot be sure if any up down play was in the post that showed the damaged vertical aluminium tensioner support but with that small up down play exasperated with maybe a slightly out of perfect balance of the blades, could be the cause of the failure, certainly over tightening the belts would not help and the looseness of the slider to rail without this mod would also be a contributing reason for the failure. 

It is a simple left and right 3/16"rod ends with a left right centre threaded shaft, the hooks themselves were Stainless steel. 
All that this mod was doing is closing the gap between the rail and bearing slider so there was no up / down play, Once that was adjusted there was no need to loosen it for subsequent belt tensioner as it would slide along with the bearing plate. I put them on both sides I thought

it prudent

[Lyle Swallows]

i'm fortunate to have a Chopco slider upgrade.

i think this would be worthwhile to explore if the rails are opening up from the original installation/drawing dimensions.

i think larry's vertical support failure was a combination of overtightnening of the belts, no washer under the nut, and perhaps a bur developed and propagated into a crack. washers are there to be the load bearing surface and keep the fretting/friction damage from the loaded structure/assembly.

[Graeme Smith]

i'm fortunate to have a Chopco slider upgrade.

i think this would be worthwhile to explore if the rails are opening up from the original installation/drawing dimensions.

i think larry's vertical support failure was a combination of overtightnening of the belts, no washer under the nut, and perhaps a bur developed and propagated into a crack. washers are there to be the load bearing surface and keep the fretting/friction damage from the loaded structure/assembly.

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A simple test for all RW tail rotor on sliders is to grab the tail rotor hub ands ee if you can move it up and down, if so then the turnbuckle idea is a solution

[Orv Neisingh]

Here is how we usually do it. https://rotorwayforums.com/flywithorv/ww...rotor.html

[Homer Bell]

This area of the ship is many times poorly built by the builder. They assume wrongly that the bearing holders need to slide freely in the rails. This is absolutely not the case. These should always require a good bit of pressure to move them. Any play or slop in this area is going to be aggravated by any imbalance in the tail rotor.
This condition can be solved in a number of ways. You can rebuild the rear area that holds the rails together, which is time consuming and requires new material. You can order the parts Orv suggests. One of the simplest ways is to simply go around all the rails with a long good quality hose clamp. In any case sloppy looseness in this area must be fixed or it will eventually beat itself to death.
As for drilling holes in the bearing plate to rail is a pretty good idea as I’ve seen more than one all thread bolt holding belt tension break and allow the belts to loosen. So once the tail belts have set and usually require no more adjustments, lock that position in with a small bolt.
I’m sure some will disagree with me but frequent tail belt adjustments are not required once belts stop stretching. That may take ages hours , but they will eventually get a set and will not stretch any more. Many will adjust belts because the temperature in the morning will cause the belts to check a little on the low side because the boom is cold and has shrunk in length. If you adjust the belts to this cold condition, then in the afternoon when temps sore, then the belts will be overly tight. As you operate the machine , belts,pulleys, and the boom will warm up and belt tension will change. Count on that when you check tensions in cool morning air. People operating in below freezing temps might have to adjust their settings a little bit, but a happy median should be found to go thru a 50 degree change and not need to be fiddling with belt temps.
Unlike the old Gates and Bando belts which had tremendous amount of stretch, the new aramid fiber belts stretch very little. Once they are done stretching , usually in first few hours they are set and will not change much at all. The thing that will change belt stretch is how much power they have been subject to. If you’ve only been carrying on person and then you start carrying a passenger, the belts may stretch a little. This is true for the main belts as well. Once they have been subjected to full power for a while, stretching is done. They will hold this setting for many hours. If they start to loosen after that, better think about changing the out, they may be trying to tell you something.
Check belts when it’s cold and when it’s hot, know the difference and know what to expect. Don’t make changes you don’t need to.
Homer