Seems like the notch in there control arm wears out quickly.
Yesterday locked steering unlocked while taxing straight ahead for no good reason. Took it apart today and found the notch was not clean anymore, the edges were worn. Happen to have another one on hand and swapped it out.
Quests it's about time to order another one....
David,
If your control arm notch appears worn when you're still in early phase 1, something is clearly amiss. My stock arm has 300 hours and almost 400 landings with no wear in the notch, although I did have to deburr the pin once. Also, use light oil, not grease on the pin. Grease will eventually gum up and cause intermittent sticking.
When I first buit my -8, I thought I was doing the right thing by rounding the sharp edges of the arm notch...then I realized that it wouldn't stay locked that way!
Skylor
RV-8
Thanks,
The notch had some burr on it when it was checked and assembled, I used a scotch wheel to remove it and took a slight amount of material off the edge in the process.
But I don't think that was the problem. I found a slight up-down motion of the shaft and when it was in the down part of that motion, it would unlock or not lock when centered. A thin steel washer was added under the nut and now the shaft does not move up or down and it seems to stay locked and re-locks easily. It will be taxi and flight tested today.
That reminds me of something else that I found: the threaded portion of the tail wheel fork steering shaft has a radius where it meets the larger diameter shaft. In my case, the washer didn't have enough chamfer on the ID, thus it was resting on the radius instead of on the flat portion of the shaft causing some vertical play and binding of the pin. I used a dremel to chamfer the ID of one side of the washer which eliminated most of the vertical play of the tail wheel steering shaft.
Skylor