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Nose wheel vibration

chevytoo

Member
I have had a vibration from the nose wheel since day one. I first thought it was shimmy. I tightened the nose wheel fork one castellation. All that did was make it more difficult to steer while taxiing. I saw in a shadow while landing that the nose wheel was bouncing vertical up and down. I have the original Vans setup with the axle bolt torqued to 7 to 10 ft lbs. The force to rotate the tire is about 6 lbs. I have backed off the torque of the bolt to just snug and made sure neither the bearing nor the adapter rotate with the wheel. Have not yet test flown but the drag on the wheel feels close to the same. Any ideas what is causing this vibration?
Ray
 
Check out Antisplat Aero Bearing Mod

I sent a New Tire & Tube & Rim to Alan for the bearing Mod Install. He had to shave the tire to insure it was perfectly round. Claims it is surprising how many tires are "In Balance" BUT "Out of Round". Check out his video's!
 
My nose wheel tire needed replacing. Bought a replacement from Van's. It is VERY out of round. It can really start bouncing at certain taxi speeds.
 
If you haven’t checked the torque of the nose gear to the engine mount bolt, I suggest putting a wrench on it. I’ve owned a 9a for roughly 6 months and tried everything listed. Tire pressure and increasing nose axle torque helped slightly but the thing that took it from a problem to a minor annoyance was the upper bolt torque. Check the upper torque on the mains while you’re at it.
 
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We had a problem that developed after 900 hours of flying. At specifically 24 kts ground speed the nose would vibrate. ReplaceD nose tire, replaceD strut attach bolt, and checked the breakout force. None of this was bad and the problem persisted.

We then replaced the right main tire and brakes and he problem went away. Not saying this is the fix but it worked for us. No issues since.
 
New tires no shakes

I had the same issue with Monsters and replaced the tires with Wilkenson retreads, I have since experienced no vibrations at 30Kts and that was two years ago without rotating the tires or balancing. Monsters are good, but I had a bad set, I believe, the point is, the replacement of tires made it all go away. If nothing else works, try a new set of tires and see if that improves the rollout, if it does, its the tires, if it doesnt, keep the old tires for future replacement and focus on other factors.
As mentioned before "balanced" doesnt mean a nice round tire, and nothing will resolve that, other than skimming the high points.
Best of success!
Let us know what ended up working!
 
I have had a vibration from the nose wheel since day one. I first thought it was shimmy. I tightened the nose wheel fork one castellation. All that did was make it more difficult to steer while taxiing. I saw in a shadow while landing that the nose wheel was bouncing vertical up and down. I have the original Vans setup with the axle bolt torqued to 7 to 10 ft lbs. The force to rotate the tire is about 6 lbs. I have backed off the torque of the bolt to just snug and made sure neither the bearing nor the adapter rotate with the wheel. Have not yet test flown but the drag on the wheel feels close to the same. Any ideas what is causing this vibration?
Ray

As others have said, change out that nosewheel bearing setup asap. Please see and read this thread carefully, particularly the parts pertaining to the bearing.
 
My nose wheel had a bad shimmy and it only seem to get worse the faster I taxied. At my last condition inspection I completely removed the nose wheel bracket and nose wheel axle assembly and cleaned everything up. Then regreased everything and tightened to specs.

Big difference! I won’t say the shimmy is gone completely but it’s definitely much better and I have to taxi at a fast speed to get it. Good luck!
 
Same here

What I thought was a nosewheel shimmy at about 25 knots on the ground turned out to be coming from the mains. Discovered this when I fast taxied to get off a long runway, and the nosewheel came up, but the shimmy continued. :)

New tires on the mains solved everything. Rolls perfectly at all speeds now.

We had a problem that developed after 900 hours of flying. At specifically 24 kts ground speed the nose would vibrate. ReplaceD nose tire, replaceD strut attach bolt, and checked the breakout force. None of this was bad and the problem persisted.

We then replaced the right main tire and brakes and he problem went away. Not saying this is the fix but it worked for us. No issues since.
 
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