Tailwheel fork, steering pin slot wear

[jbDC9]

I installed a Bell tailwheel fork within the first year of flying my RV-8; I’m quite used to maintaining the standard wear items of the steering pin plus the notch on the steering arm… I’ve cycled through several sets of pins and arms. But now after 16 years and 2100 hours the tailwheel yoke itself is showing some wear that I hadn’t expected; the steering pin slide slot on the vertical shaft of the yoke has become worn allowing a good bit of lateral play on the steering pin. During taxi I have a bit of free play on the rudder due to the slight slack on my tailwheel steering cables, but now the added wear and lateral play of the steering pin makes it worse. My tailwheel steering response has gotten pretty sloppy, subtly changing over the last couple of years. It’s time to fix it.

Has anyone else seen this, and is there a fix, as in perhaps a welding shop could weld a small bead on either side of the slot to be filed smooth? Or should I just bite the bullet and buy a whole new fork?

 

[Ironflight]

Hey John, now that you mention it, I have recently felt liek the tailwheel on my -8 seems to be wandering around a bit on rollout - was just thinking about it this morning as I came back from a fuel trip, trying to decide if it was ME or the airplane! I was actually trying to think about what could make the tailwheel feel loose when the arm and pin are fairly new!

I’ll check to see if that slot is wearing - closing in on 2200 hours, and I’ve had the Bell fork for most of that time.

Paul

 

[jbDC9]

I was actually trying to think about what could make the tailwheel feel loose when the arm and pin are fairly new!

Exactly! My pin is clean, lubed, no burrs, while the arm is somewhat recent with no burrs at the slot… but when I finally spotted the lateral wiggle of the pin in the slider slot, that was my “aha!” moment. But now the question is, what to do about it? And I just looked at the Flyboy Accessories site, Bell forks out of stock…

 

[sprucemoose]

The steering pin itself is a pretty straightforward item and not terribly difficult to fabricate. Perhaps a custom made pin, appropriately oversized, would be a solution. I don’t know if they are hardened or which alloy is used, but that info should be available.

Another idea- contact Blake @ Flyboy Accesories, perhaps they could do a custom oversize pin.

 

[PCHunt]

....... the steering pin slide slot on the vertical shaft of the yoke has become worn allowing a good bit of lateral play on the steering pin. During taxi I have a bit of free play on the rudder due to the slight slack on my tailwheel steering cables, but now the added wear and lateral play of the steering pin makes it worse.......

As an interim step, you could take all the slack out of the steering cables, which might reduce the "slop".

Long term fix is to renew all worn parts, of course.

 

[jbDC9]

Two months later and I'm back to answer my own original question; the answer is, get a new fork!

I coughed up the $$ to buy a new Bell fork plus a new steering arm from Flyboy Accessories, installed 'em this afternoon and took it out for a test flight. Holy crap, what a difference! The tailwheel steering is much tighter and more responsive. The wear and slop kinda crept up on me... I dunno, maybe I thought that fork would last forever? Ah well, I got 2000+ hours out of it, I guess I can't complain.

I did mention to a local mechanic/welder the idea of trying to weld a small bead on either side of the slot; he just raised an eye brow and said "Dude, just get another fork..." Well, okay then!