While doing the preflight noticed one of the wheel pants had too much movement .... pulled the wheel pants and dicovered that both AN3-40 bolts that attach the outboard pant support bracket to the axle had failed at the surface of the axle. It apears to be a fatigue type failure. Now on to the repairs.
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Wheel Pant Bolt failure
- Thread starter rejnovca
- Start date
Geico266
Well Known Member
Do you fly off grass?
On mine, when fully tightened those bolts are only into the axle by a depth of one or two threads - that is, the non-threaded portion of the bolt goes into the hole by only about 1/16 inch. Did they break off where you could extract them easy enough? Do you think you might have had a sharp impact with a rock or something?
Others - would these be more resistant to that sort of break if the bolts were a bit longer? (I have not checked the threaded hole depth).
Others - would these be more resistant to that sort of break if the bolts were a bit longer? (I have not checked the threaded hole depth).
dick seiders
Well Known Member
Rejnovca, I have not yet installed my wheel pants, but have fitted therm to the 12 for fabrication check. I noticed that during that process on both wheels the long AN3 bolts that hold the alum. spacer are a very tight fit at the axles. As a matter of fact I had to titen them only about 1/4 turn switching back and forth between the bolts or they would bind and put considerable bending pressure on the bolts. This puts them in shear as well as tension and may be the reason they failed. Seems likely either the axles or spacers (or both) are drilled off center. I made a note to myself that before installing the bolts at final assmbly of the pants I would ream the holes in the spacers sufficiently to remove the binding. I believe that will solve the problem.
Dick Seiders
Dick Seiders
