What's new
Van's Air Force

Don't miss anything! Register now for full access to the definitive RV support community.

Front wheel vibration

[email protected]

I'm New Here
Dears sirs,
I have a RV9 A and some times when i land ,my front whell does a lot of vibration (sorry about my english...).
The last landings I even broke a litlee bit the fiberglass cover.
Do you have any solution for this matter?
Thanks in advanced
Best Regards
Gerard Souza
Bras?lia, Brasil
 
Welcome to VAF

A couple of things to check.

1. Air pressure should be 30 - 32PSI. Vans says 22 - 25, but I have found more is better.
2. Check the tightness (break out) of your front wheel. It is designed to be "tight" or take 22 pounds of pull until it moves or "breaks out" side to side.
3. If your tire is worn, replace it.
4. Keep the nose wheel off the ground until you can't keep it off anymore, then apply brakes to get you slowed down to a taxi speed.

Lets us know what works.

Your English is better than my Spanish!
 
Last edited:
Hello Gerard:

First. make sure that the breakout force to make the nosewheel caster is set correctly. It should take about 24lbs of force at the wheel axel to make the nosewheel caster.

Second, check that your tire pressure is correct. Too much pressure and the wheel will want to shimmy.

Hope this helps. Never mind about your Enlish either....I read you loud and clear!


Regards,
 
Nose Wheel Shimmy

Ever since the first flight of my 6A I had a bad vibration on roll-out at about 27 mph.

I tried all the cures listed in Van's document except the wooden dampeners, none of them helped.

After putting up with it for almost a year, I finally had the tires balanced by my local AP. That fixed the problem!

Spinning the tires (by hand) on the static (gravity) balancer we could see that the tires were not out-of-round and didn't have any flat spots. After we got the approximate weight need, I deflated the tires and rotated the tire on the rim so the red-spot was 180 degrees from where it started, and we re-balanced the tire. The location of the spot didn't make any difference balance-wise (Air Hawk tires).

The right main took 1.5 oz, left main took 3.0 oz, and the nose wheel took 2.0 oz. of self-adhesive weight. TIP:pre-form the weight to the shape of the rim before removing the adhesive backing, then apply.

The weights have been on for at least 100 landings without a problem, and no more shimmy!

A few oz of lead solved my shimmy problem, YMMV.

view_photo.php
 
Geico266 said:
Welcome to VAF

A couple of things to check.

1. Air pressure should be 30 - 32PSI. Vans says 22 - 25, but I have found more is better.
2. Check the tightness (break out) of your front wheel. It is designed to be "tight" or take 22 pounds of pull until it moves or "breaks out" side to side.
3. If your tire is worn, replace it.
4. Keep the nose wheel off the ground until you can't keep it off anymore, then apply brakes to get you slowed down to a taxi speed.

Lets us know what works.

Your English is better than my Spanish!
I believe it's Portuguese but it's still better than mine as well. :eek:
 
Back
Top