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Uneven tire wear - RV14A

My 14A has only 20 hours logged and main tires are like this:



Are there any shims that can be added to fix such uneven camber?

Thanks!
 
Your pictures are very interesting because my tires wear on the inboard side and yours look to wear in the outboard side. In the hangar the gear is toed in and seems to lie on the outboard side so I have to assume that when I land there is flex in the gear and the hardest wear ends up inboard at landing. It has puzzled me a bit. I also get more wear on the left where my own weight would be the main factor. All that aside I’ve replaced my Michelin airs ( on beringer wheels) once each side with a tire flip to extend wear once each side. So on average about 250 hours per tire just replaced one and flipped the other this weekend.

I bought grove wheels for my rv8 build but after changing tires again this weekend on the 14 and the super simple brake pad replacement on the beringers I think I’ll put the same gear on my rv8 in my shop. We will see. If I do that I’ll stick with the the stock Matco masters since I don’t know that the beringer masters are inherently better.
 
Your pictures are very interesting because my tires wear on the inboard side and yours look to wear in the outboard side.
I believe this would be the only RV that I see with the wear on the inside and not on the outside.

The shim will affect the toe-in/out and not wheel camber.
 
20 Hours?

Am I reading that wrong? Did this tire get that far gone in just 20 hours? If it did grind all that away in 20 hrs, then do you see a big difference in wheel base width between pushing the airplane forward and then backward?
 
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Did this tire get that far gone in just 20 hours?

The question is rather 20 hours of what?
The wear of brakes and tires is proportional to many factors such as km or miles covered, acceleration/deceleration forces, tire pressure and many more.
20 flight hours is rather meaningless as measure of tire wear...
 
20 hrs phase 1

My 14A has only 20 hours logged and main tires are like this:



Are there any shims that can be added to fix such uneven camber?

Thanks!

I agree in phase 1 hopefully you are not doing pattern work landing and taking off every 5 mins, that's not good on a new engine (low power downwind, base to final) maybe an already broken in engine. It would be good to hear from the OP his flight profile. I've got 330 hours on my tires and flipped at 250. Should last till 500 hrs., I hope. Nose wheel I'm guessing 600 - 800 hrs.
 
I agree in phase 1 hopefully you are not doing pattern work landing and taking off every 5 mins, that's not good on a new engine (low power downwind, base to final) maybe an already broken in engine. It would be good to hear from the OP his flight profile. I've got 330 hours on my tires and flipped at 250. Should last till 500 hrs., I hope. Nose wheel I'm guessing 600 - 800 hrs.

I’m curious about this. How many of you determine tire wear based on hours of flight? If your stage length averages 2 hours, then 500 hours isn’t that good (250 landings). In my 500 hours I’ll have at least 1500 landings. I don’t think my tires will last that long. That’s why I keep track of landings - to determine what tires work best for me in the long run. I don’t see why hours have anything to do with tire wear longevity? Maybe there’s something I’m missing……. it’s happened before…….
 
Hrs aren't really a direct metric for any kind of wear or maintenance activity (except perhaps the mechanical Hobbs meter itself ;). A target of 2,000 hrs TBO is a great example. All service lives have to do with specific loads or stresses depending on what you are doing right? If you have high end sensors and recorders that can track things like load cycles you can use better metrics.

But short of that there are average loads and average behaviors that we can apply to average service lives of various things.

In this case tire wear by flight hour will vary wildly based on what you do with your airplane. However, if your wheels are tracking correctly I think you would have to be doing something really aggressive to wear through them in 20 hrs. Not impossible by any stretch, but far enough out of what normal phase one ops are to be of concern.
 
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Precise numbers

I’m curious about this. How many of you determine tire wear based on hours of flight? If your stage length averages 2 hours, then 500 hours isn’t that good (250 landings). In my 500 hours I’ll have at least 1500 landings. I don’t think my tires will last that long. That’s why I keep track of landings - to determine what tires work best for me in the long run. I don’t see why hours have anything to do with tire wear longevity? Maybe there’s something I’m missing……. it’s happened before…….

Sure, it would be better to know number of landings but most of us don't track this. Even doing this you have many other factors that control tire wear, grass or asphalt, airspeed when touching down, crabbing or slipping, tire pressure, type of tire, etc., etc. It's an estimate on an estimate and so airframe hours might well be as precise and is what most track.........So next post please list these 7 factors and we can make a better comparison......;)
 
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Gotta check the plane's camber. Something is wrong.

Not a camber problem. Even a toe problem that is severe will take a good amount of time to produce that kind of wear (were talking about the tires in contact with the ground and rolling for less than 50 miles here). Given how sharply defined the wear line is on the outside of the tire (looks like a straight line), I have to believe this is coming from excessive side loading on landing or a sticking brake. It is a LOT of wear for what I am guessing is 30-40 landings and IMHO NOT normal.

If you have done 250 Touch and go's then my opinion is different and this is normal for those cheap tires.
 
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I agree that the level of wear in 20 hrs seem excessive and unusual, however, the pattern is not. The camber happens from weight off wheels, and the touchdown point happens outboard causing uneven wear. Typical on almost every RV

I also flip them at every CI (~90-100 hrs).

There are some runway surfaces that like to eat tires. Some airports have known to use sea shells as aggregate in asphalt...it devours tires. Maybe the cause of your wear rate in combination with tire composition? Though I'm guessing your experience is not at a new airport and this is unique to this build?
 
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Not a camber problem. Even a toe problem that is severe will take a good amount of time to produce that kind of wear (were talking about the tires in contact with the ground and rolling for less than 50 miles here). Given how sharply defined the wear line is on the outside of the tire (looks like a straight line), I have to believe this is coming from excessive side loading on landing or a sticking brake. It is a LOT of wear for what I am guessing is 30-40 landings and IMHO NOT normal.

If you have done 250 Touch and go's then my opinion is different and this is normal for those cheap tires.

I believe this is the issue. The plane has a tendency to steer right on taxi which is leading me to believe that that's the issue.

I wonder if runway temperature would be an issue? Local temperatures in here are close to ~95F for 8 out of 12 months of the year. Runway is asphalt. Would this hot asphalt contribute for such an wear?

Anyway I'll swap tires and check the brakes. I've gotta search how to fix a sticking brake.

Thanks all for your insights and comments.
 
Tires changed

Beringer brakes and axles, Michelin tires - 425 hrs. (Oil Pressure over 12.6864 psi hrs. logging). 521.24 landings. 98% asphalt. 62% Southern location landings, 38% North. Flipped and rotated once.

Lessons learned - If I smell rubber I landed to fast.
 

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