Nose Landing Gear Play

[Paddy]

Originally Posted by Phil

Don?t over think it. Just do it and move on.

Or... since you are building a plane in your garage (), you could choose to think about everything very carefully... to each his own

[Dustyone]

My Nose Landing Gear has always had some side to side play in it so this Annual I took the opportunity to install the Oversized Bushes that Van's sells.

2 x VA-144 OVSZ

The bushes come oversized and a simple measurement with some telescopic bore gauges will give you the correct size to machine your new bushes down to.

The Standard Bushes VA-144 measure : .750"

My Engine Frame/Nose Gear Mount measured : .760 ( average )

So I machined my new bushes to .758 ", applied fresh grease and reassembled.
I was rewarded with no detectable side play in my Nose Gear and an annoying clunking that was always there when I taxi or roll out after landing is now gone.

I don't know if the old bushes would of ever become a service problem but I am enjoying the reduction in play and noise in my front nose gear.

It should be noted that all these bushes require some service (grease ) and I would recommend that all owners plan to service these bushes at some time, maybe every 4-5 years.

[RV10inOz]

With much thanks to Ashley whose post above describes exactly what we did, with ours being machined to 0.759" all i can say is wow.

Tracks much nivcer, not clunky all the time and flies about 30 knots faster

Seriously well worth getting this right.