Nose Gear Lessons Learned

[BMW_X6M]

My RV-9A has 800 hours now, and made some noise from the front gear when using the toe bar. I found I could rock it back and forth very slightly with the weight off of it. I purchased the oversize bolt and metal lock nut, and it went back in snugly, having to turn an old nut on the bolt to seat it. After final torque with the new nut, I have no more play in the gear.
This is obviously a huge relief and thank you for the creater of this thread. It proved to be valuable information for this non builder.

[boxflyer*B777]

Is this too much play in my RV9a nose gear leg? The airplane has about 80 hours since new.
https://youtu.be/zRDVjcM0wt8

[Vlad]

Originally Posted by boxflyer*B777

Is this too much play in my RV9a nose gear leg? The airplane has about 80 hours since new.
https://youtu.be/zRDVjcM0wt8

It's a lot in my opinion. Check the bolt.

[gasman]

Way too much play.... The proper amount is NONE. If the plane has 80 hours on it, the bolt is not properly installed. It may be too short. The shank must pass through the entire outer tube and be exposed by at least 1/16 inch on the nut side. The bolt has a slight taper at the start of the threads, and if that area is still in the wall of the outer tube, it will show play.

Use the next larger bolt and washers under the head and under the nut to allow full shank contact with the nut side of the hole. Do not over torque the nut. It has nothing to do with this play.

[jcarne]

Originally Posted by boxflyer*B777

Is this too much play in my RV9a nose gear leg? The airplane has about 80 hours since new.
https://youtu.be/zRDVjcM0wt8

Way too much, if you ever get into one of them wheel shimmy scenarios that bolt it going to take an absolute beating! If you search the forums there are other bolts that people have fixed this with, usually one that is just slightly larger.

[Malndi]

Originally Posted by boxflyer*B777

Is this too much play in my RV9a nose gear leg? The airplane has about 80 hours since new.
https://youtu.be/zRDVjcM0wt8

During the last annual inspection I discovered roughly the same amount of play between the nose leg and engine mount as seen in this video. Further investigation revealed the bottom hole in the engine mount was flogged out. Disappointing given that a snug NAS bolt had been installed to prevent exactly that.

I think part of the problem was that I had the unfortunate experience of having two Aeroclassic tubeless tyres in a row that were out of round and exciting a lot of shimmy. Third time lucky I got a tyre that was round and the shimmy is now resolved. But I digress.

From here, installing a taper pin seemed to offer a solution to the flogged out hole. Using the procedure described on Matronics as a guide, the appropriate parts were ordered from ACS. However, it became apparent that the damage was worse than expected and the hole was too large for the taper pin.




I might have considered a new engine mount at this stage, maybe even a tail wheel conversion, but being on the other side of the world there was now no doubt the repair would involve welding.

To my great relief a master toolmaker offered to repair and improve the engine mount. As (I hope) you can see in these photos, compared to the engine mount tube alone there is now a lot more surface area for the taper pin.




The most difficult part of all this was accepting that the engine needed to come off. It got easier after that.

Short of converting to the new nose wheel arrangement, I think my nose gear is now more robust and I don?t anticipate there being any further issues.

[grubbat]

I like how that repair was done. More area to support the through bolt and a nice weld to boot. Nice job!

The danger for ?improving? an area such as this is that you could be moving the stress to another unwanted area. I?d recommend you Look at this every 50hr or maybe oil change for the next couple of years. I suspect that you will not have the wear you had before.........but since it is a change, albeit a minor one, won?t hurt to keep an eye on it.

By the way, thanks for sharing!

[Bill Boyd]

I'm not an engineer, but I did do the nose gear bolt replacement last year at the first sign of slight play (900 hours on turf). I had a rock solid second lease on life when I finished, but just last weekend I started hearing a new groan out of the mount when castering the nose wheel to position the plane in the hangar. I haven't checked with the wheel off the floor yet (need a helper on the tail) but I'm sure the play is back again.

I like the repair pictured above, and in my opinion the factory mount should be made this way ab initio. In fact, I find it irritating that nose wheel mounts ever left the factory the way they do. Too many have worn loose not to get out ahead of this known (or entirely foreseeable) problem.

[flyvans.com]

anyone done the fix with an upsize -X bolt to get rid of a small wiggle on an -A model recently?
finding inconclusive information...

Is a NAS6605-26X, NAS6605-27X or NAS6605-28X the right length?

thanks for a quick confirmation!

[johnbright]

My tapered pin installation success story.

http://www.vansairforce.com/communit...95#post1432595