Harken roll pin furler wire replacement

[sanibel sailor]

Hello all
I am replacing the headstay inside my elderly Harken roll pin furler. It currently has swayed fitting and I plan to use Norseman mechanical fittings. I have it down, the prefeeder and drum off and the locking collar removed, without a single broken screw, just the foil with wire inside left. I have the newer manual, no older one available either thru Harken or online, but it does not seem to address my dilemma. As expected it covers new assembly rather than wire replacement. The foil length seems to be too long to allow easy assembly of the fittings and the locking collar is not long enough to permit the stud to screw into the drum. With the upper end at the base of the eye, the bottom of the stud is not exposed.

I think what I need to do is drive out the roll pin at the prefeeder junction so I can slide the foils together a bit, exposing more wire at the bottom. While the pin should be easy enough, I am not terribly optimistic about sliding the foils on the connector. I need to cut the end off the wire to get it out, and it seems like the new wire goes in easy enough, but I am reluctant to proceed down the path of no return without clear plan to get the ends attached.

[sanibel sailor]

Bottom

[sanibel sailor]

Collar stud and drum

[sanibel sailor]

Done. Spoke to the guys at riggingonly.com where I bought the wire and terminals, sent him the pics. He made it easy. Ditched the locking collar and used a regular locknut. Trimmed an inch off the top of the foil, added a washer at the top. Also fabricated a Delrin sleeve inside the foil at the top to center the wire at their suggestion.
By ditching the locking collar, I was able to run the bottom terminal all the way down into the drum, this gave me another inch. It was quite tight working room, getting the outer wires off and back on was a minor challenge, but it all came together OK. I did not have to fool with the prefeeder gap at all. Replaced all the machine screws wih new and loc-tite on everything. Foil now slightly more exposed at the top of the torque tube, but still captured adequately and new pin to pin length is near perfect. I left it a quarter inch short expecting some stretch of the wire as the strands seat when initially tensioned. Prior measure was 49'-0 1/4", I suspect they were shooting for 49 even which is where I put it. I do not imagine a quarter matters as long as the threads are adequately buried (2" minimum per Harken)