Originally Posted by stringbender (Post 1618368)

I posted a week ago about having vertical (up and down) vibration on NLG tire, after inspection I found two flat spots. I removed the classic aero tire, put a replacement tire/tube from my hangar mate and flew it. It was worst...but the tire was 1/8'' out of round. I then order two new ones from Spruce, and the tire was true. I then talked to a EAA Mentor who installs a spacer inside the wheel, so to obtain a normal torque on the 3/8'' bolt. Not the 7-10 foot lbs. The "trick is" to make the spacer big enough that the bearings are free to move, roll freely. That is quite a task. I made several spacers and the grease drag on the bearing made it difficult to tell. Too big and the bearing would rotate on the outside spacer (not to be confused with the inside spacer that was manufactured). Too small and you don't get a torque up of the bolt.

The goal I had was to be able to rotate the tire with bearings greased "one full turn".

History; I purchased the aircraft 1 year ago, everything has been fine until a vertical vibration was felt. 80 flight hours and approx 100 landings. I did notice the original spacers had rotated which I think was from the original owners history, it leaves slight grooves in the Yoke.

Suggestions?
Comments?

Question; Does anyone have a internal spacer dimension?

Originally Posted by stringbender (Post 1618368)

I posted a week ago about having vertical (up and down) vibration on NLG tire, after inspection I found two flat spots. I removed the classic aero tire, put a replacement tire/tube from my hangar mate and flew it. It was worst...but the tire was 1/8'' out of round. I then order two new ones from Spruce, and the tire was true. I then talked to a EAA Mentor who installs a spacer inside the wheel, so to obtain a normal torque on the 3/8'' bolt. Not the 7-10 foot lbs. The "trick is" to make the spacer big enough that the bearings are free to move, roll freely. That is quite a task. I made several spacers and the grease drag on the bearing made it difficult to tell. Too big and the bearing would rotate on the outside spacer (not to be confused with the inside spacer that was manufactured). Too small and you don't get a torque up of the bolt.

The goal I had was to be able to rotate the tire with bearings greased "one full turn".

History; I purchased the aircraft 1 year ago, everything has been fine until a vertical vibration was felt. 80 flight hours and approx 100 landings. I did notice the original spacers had rotated which I think was from the original owners history, it leaves slight grooves in the Yoke.

Suggestions?
Comments?

Question; Does anyone have a internal spacer dimension?

Originally Posted by lr172 (Post 1618372)

Just buy the matco axle. It is under $100 and is adjustable to create the correct pre-load for ANY installation. It is the easiest fix for the issue you have.

Larry

Originally Posted by jask (Post 1618398)

Another solution is to replace the 3/8 bolt with a larger hard bolt.

Originally Posted by jask (Post 1618396)

Do you have the Matco axle installed?

Originally Posted by jask (Post 1618408)

If you look at the Matco axle, that is effectively what they are doing. The 6061 spacer just makes the axle thicker. Just drill out the yoke and spacers and use a cad plated 1/2 bolt. That's the cheapest solution.

Originally Posted by jask (Post 1618391)

I saw several examples of the bushings that had locked up and spun against the yoke. If those bushings lock up, it also means the bearings are locked up. A correctly sized spacer between the bushings would set the preload and do the same thing as the Matco axle.

I disagree that a locked nose wheel would "not fold the gear".