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Pilottonny

Well Known Member
The manual calls for "well balanced wheels". So, since I am getting everything ready to put the plane on the gear, I have been trying to find somebody that can balance my wheels, before I install them on the gearlegs.

Well, after visiting at least over a dozen Tire specialistst, Motorbike shops, Scooter and Quad shops, the local Aircraft maintenance guy, etc. etc., I found only one place that could do it, but they wanted more money than what the wheels cost, because they have to make two shafts to be able to mount the wheels on their balancing machine.

The balancing machines of all the tire specialists, I went to see, did not accept such small wheels. Where did others get their wheels balanced?

Regards, Tonny.
 
You may not need to balance.............. I have used GOODYEARS on my Piper for 26 years, and also on the 6A and have never needed to balance a wheel.

I would not even use the tires that come with the kit. Go right to Goodyear FLT. SPEC. You will find that these tires run true and will last 4 to one.
 
Maybe I was just lucky, but the first motorcycle/offroad vehicle shop I tried was able to balance my nose wheel on their fancy machine in just a couple minutes. I think they charged me $5.

erich
 
Tire balancing

My 2 cents worth. If you are handy, and want to spend some time ( cheap ), I have done it by guess-work. You can spin the tire up to fairly good speed using a HD buffer with a wool bonnet. ( won't hurt the tire ). Just tape on a weight and see if it is better or worse. Takes patience, but you can get them near perfect. I think the hardest one I have done maybe took an hour. Clean the spot where the weight(s) are needed, and use the self-adhesive type weights.

John Bender
 
Erich,

Considder yourselve lucky! Nobody over here could handle these small wheels. I even tried a Cart-center, but they do static balancing on a smal shaft, equiped with bicycle bearings, just to fit the carting wheels. They stick lead on the opposite side of where the wheel "drops" to, until it does not stop at a specific point anymore.

The next thing I am going to try, is calling the balancing machine manufacturers, to find out to whom they sold a machine that can handle these small 5" wheels, in my area.

Anyway, for static balancing you need an exact fitting shaft. Maybe, if everthing else fails, I will have to have some made.

Thanks for the replies,

Regards, Tonny.
 
I've been struggling with this same question. We haven't been able to find a motorcycle shop that could reliably balance our wheels either. I've been thinking about making a "really good" static rig. I've even been dreaming up a dynamic rig using an encoding servo like is used in the CNC machine world and an accelerometer like is used for dynamic prop balancing. A little bit of software and you have a really accurate dynamic balancing rig :). Always another fun project to think about.
 
To much friction!

Steve,

Have you ever turned your wheels by hand? The bearing seals wil not allow the wheel to turn freely. Maybe on the rear wheels the seals may be removable, but on the front wheel, the seals are not removable and it takes some effort to turn the wheel! No chance to do static balancing!

Regards,

Tonny.
 
Tonny - I did spin the mains before they were full of grease as John C mentioned. In fact the tension was backed off. I can see that once the grease is in it must be really hard.

A nosewheel on a VANS is a BIG mistake to my mind. The whole design is a disaster that has already happened many times and will I am sure happen again despite the redesign. Just keep it off the ground as long as possible, and take great care. Sorry to be negative about it. Balancing appears to be the least of its problems.

John B's approach sounds reasonable.

I am lucky in that I have never experienced any off balance behaviour, but then I am usually on grass. Perhaps that helps. What sort of speed do you experience the problem at?
 
Want to balance before installing the wheels for the first time

Steve,

Maybe you did not get the question, but I am not flying yet! I am going to put the gear legs under soon!

BTW, the safety record of the nosegear is not being discussed here!

Regards, Tonny.
 
FBO "balancer"

Tonny - I go over to my local FBO and they let me use their static balancer. It is a super simple thing - two big cones that screw together and capture the wheel between (take the bearings out). They cones ride on ball bearings. You spin the thing and watch what happens. Put weights opposite the heavy side. made a difference for me, and would be an easy machine to replicate.
 
Matco Wheels, Axles and Balance

Matco explains why their bearing seals have drag and why it should not be reduced at http://media1.veracart.com/matco/item_pdfs/3649/document1.pdf . To address RV customer worries they seem to have introduced a retrofit axle/spacer, see http://www.matcomfg.com/AXLEASSEMBLYA24125INCH-idv-3657-1.html. It appears to separate bearing preload from axle retention and, properly installed, should make for an overall more robust system. Under installation instructions on the same page, they show a crude static balancing system using a 3/8 inch rod and two blocks. Since the bearings and seals still have very high drag, the rod will have to roll on the blocks for this setup to work. That means the rod must be straight and the blocks must have a very smooth, level surface. An improvement might be to slip a low friction, unsealed, 3/8 ID ball bearing on each end of the rod.
 
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What if...

What if you just suspended each tire horizontally. When it tilts, add some weight to the opposite side. If it works, really cheap. just some string. Somebody must of tried this already with poor results though.:rolleyes:
 
slight off topic

Steve Sampson said:
Tonny - A nosewheel on a VANS is a BIG mistake to my mind. The whole design is a disaster that has already happened many times and will I am sure happen again despite the redesign. Just keep it off the ground as long as possible, and take great care. ?
Click to expand...

You see I really don't buy this..Yes accidents have happened but then I see appalling abuse of the NG by MANY RV drivers...high speed taxiing across lumpy grass, dropping the airplane on the NG just after the mains touch and watching the airplane porpoise down the runway. This is poor piloting and I suspect (without data I agree) the leading cause of most nose overs.

Treat the NG like its made of glass and barring a pothole it wil be fine.

Frank
7a
 
frankh said:
You see I really don't buy this..Yes accidents have happened but then I see appalling abuse of the NG by MANY RV drivers...high speed taxiing across lumpy grass, dropping the airplane on the NG just after the mains touch and watching the airplane porpoise down the runway. This is poor piloting and I suspect (without data I agree) the leading cause of most nose overs.

Treat the NG like its made of glass and barring a pothole it wil be fine.


7a
Click to expand...

And I must agree! :D

Statistically, around here...................If I was to compare the RV nosewheel (flip)accidents to RV taildragger (flip) accidents; it would be nosewheel 0 & tailwheel 3. :eek:

L.Adamson --- RV6A
 
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Balance

I know this sounds off the chart, however I saw someone try and balance the wheel with the bearings installed... I'm guessing everyone here knows about it but it caused a friend of mine quite a bit of grief trying to balance his nosewheel. He removed the bearings, and 5 min later, his nosewheel was balanced perfectly. It was not funny then... but it brings a smile to my face now :)
Best
Brian Wallis
 
brianwallis said:
I know this sounds off the chart, however I saw someone try and balance the wheel with the bearings installed... I'm guessing everyone here knows about it but it caused a friend of mine quite a bit of grief trying to balance his nosewheel.
Click to expand...

Brian,

Why is it not possible to balance a nosewheel with the bearings in place?

Tony
 
balance..

It's quite neat to watch... the small rollers will shift position slightly and it does not seem like much.. but there are quite a few of those guys in a wheel bearing. I'm not sure if he did not have the device tight or not.. but I had my friend take the bearings out and snug it up to the races on the wheel. I walked up to him after about a half hour of him trying to balance the wheel and tons of those little weights stuck on and I said "what are you doing?" He replied that he was balancing the wheel... I suggested he remove the wheel bearings, he did and it balanced very shortly thereafter.
Much better.... (I will have to see what kind of balancer it was... it was not a high speed balancer for the record.... It was a real simple setup with 2 cones and an axle on bearings. He cinched the cones down on the wheel with the wheel bearings on... I could hear them flopping back and forth when he turned the wheel. His wheel and bearings were turning together and the axle was turning on a pair of bearings at the end of the axle rod)
best
Brian
 
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Brian,

Not an issue with the HF balancer, as the cones ride on the outer races of the bearings. The balancer shaft is what turns, not the wheel bearings.

Tony
 
Profesional balancers

Just for the record: I had an axle made with two cones (so it can be used on different wheels) at work and had the wheels balanced by a company that specialises in balancing rotary equipment (rotors, fans, etc.).

The downside is, that they mentioned approx. EUR 100,- ($ 135,-) for the balancing, which I concidered very expensive, but now its finished it turns out they meant this amount per wheel! When I told them the wheels will probably cost less than that, they said they would come back to me with a more realistic price, but I have not received the invoice yet (after three weeks), so lets hope they are so embarresed that they will forget about it!.

Regards, Tonny.
 
One item on my completion list was wheel balance, so I decided to throw together a really cheap, simple static balance rig. Took 30 minutes to fabricate and seems to work just fine:



(1) steel plate 4" wide x 12" long
(2) steel strips 1-3/4" wide x 12" long
(4) inline skate sealed bearings
(4) sets 8mm bolt, washers, nut
(1) 1-1/4" 6061 aluminum tube, 14" long

You'll need to sand the aluminum tube for a nice firm slip fit in the wheel bearings; as delivered the OD will be about 0.001" too large.
 
balancer

Built this balancer a number of years ago for aircraft tires.
Works to within fractions of ounces.

balancer2.jpg


No need to go overboard, I suspect the HF one is just as accurate.
You just need free spinning bearings. Even a knife edge will work.

There is an article from EAA somewhere on making one as well.
Dave A.
 
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Worked out well.

First flight was just a couple of days ago. No shimmy or vibrations at all. So in the end it was not cheap but worked well!

Regards, Tonny.
 
Looks just like the one we all share here in LOU.
Works great. Removes any RV-4 gear shake at all speeds...

koda2 said:
Built this balancer a number of years ago for aircraft tires.
Works to within fractions of ounces.

balancer2.jpg


No need to go overboard, I suspect the HF one is just as accurate.
You just need free spinning bearings. Even a knife edge will work.

There is an article from EAA somewhere on making one as well.
Dave A.
Click to expand...
 
I agree Frank. Been a pet peeve of mine forever. I see students taxi Cessnas the same way though. You can see the elevator deflected full down, while they try to "power" their way around the corner...
Fly it till it's tied down must have fell out of the curriculum at some point...

frankh said:
You see I really don't buy this..Yes accidents have happened but then I see appalling abuse of the NG by MANY RV drivers...high speed taxiing across lumpy grass, dropping the airplane on the NG just after the mains touch and watching the airplane porpoise down the runway. This is poor piloting and I suspect (without data I agree) the leading cause of most nose overs.

Treat the NG like its made of glass and barring a pothole it wil be fine.

Frank
7a
Click to expand...
 
Pilottonny said:
The manual calls for "well balanced wheels". So, since I am getting everything ready to put the plane on the gear, I have been trying to find somebody that can balance my wheels, before I install them on the gearlegs.

Well, after visiting at least over a dozen Tire specialistst, Motorbike shops, Scooter and Quad shops, the local Aircraft maintenance guy, etc. etc., I found only one place that could do it, but they wanted more money than what the wheels cost, because they have to make two shafts to be able to mount the wheels on their balancing machine.

The balancing machines of all the tire specialists, I went to see, did not accept such small wheels. Where did others get their wheels balanced?

Regards, Tonny.
Click to expand...

Hi Tonny, if you ever need to balance your wheels again in the future, we sell a aircraft wheel and tire balancer for only $375.00 If you have any questions, please feel free to ask!

-carlo
 
gasman said:
You may not need to balance.............. I have used GOODYEARS on my Piper for 26 years, and also on the 6A and have never needed to balance a wheel.

I would not even use the tires that come with the kit. Go right to Goodyear FLT. SPEC. You will find that these tires run true and will last 4 to one.
Click to expand...
I am on my second set of Goodyears, the first ones lasted about 350hrs and 6years. I could have gotten another year if I rotated them but it was just as easy to replace them at the last annual, so I did. I have not bothered to balance either set and have not had an issue. I own a SnapOn electronic motorcycle wheel balancer but never felt the need to take my wheels to the shop to balance them. Maybe the Goodyears are better balanced out of the box.
 
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