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Tailwheel tightness

Brucelan

Member
I continue to have this on again / off again problem with my tailwheel.

It seems to stick as though it doesn't have any grease in it. It is packed full of grease and swivels easily when I have it off the ground. The problem seems worse when I have a backseat passenger.

For example, when I am taxiing, I have to push pretty hard on one or the other pedal to get it to move. This usually results in an over correction. It then appears that I am a staggering drunk as I taxi.

I spoke to a tech at Van's and he said something like, "yup, that's what tailwheels do" and suggested I put more grease in it. It already squeezes grease out around the top nut when I put the grease gun on it.

I have the T. James tailwheel arm (which I like very much) but that doesn't seem to be part of the issue.

Anyone have any thoughts?

thanks,

Bruce
N297NW
 
Stiff tailwheel

Bruce,
When the tailwheel gets that tight, the little grease fitting is not good enough. You must take off the top nut and remove the tailwheel shaft from the main housing. Clean everything spotless, and regrease before assembly. I do this every 100 hours or so. If you don't, the shaft and housing will wear at the bottom of the housing area and get sloppy. Only a new tailwheel assembly will fix that!
Danny King
Beautiful Doll 80434
 
Tail Wheel Tightness

Agree with Danny, I have to remove my tail wheel about every three months, clean, grease by hand, and re-assemble. The grease fitting just does not do the job. The new ones don't have a fitting according plans. :mad:
 
Bruce: Hand greasing the unassembled tail wheel post works well. I have had to replace my tail wheel bearings also so make sure you have grease in the bearings.
 
tailwheel tightness

Bruce--Danny is correct about removing tailwheel and cleaning. I fly off my grass strip where it is often dusty or muddy and I have to do this often. It is easy to know when it is necessary.

When you are moving the plane on the ground and the tailwheel does not swivel really easily, it is time to remove and clean. I use a teflon lubricant called Breakfree instead of grease. The grease will collect more dust and will clog up with dirt faster. Breakfree is an excellent lubricant used on firearms and is issued with M-16's. I keep a 4 oz. bottle in every tool box. It only takes a couple of drops.

Keeping this lubricated will prevent those landings where the tailwheel does not want to swivel and follow the airplane when you set the tail down on landing.
 
I plan on drilling and inserting another grease fitting toward the bottom of the bearing tube so I can get grease to the lower bushing as well. A 45 or 90 degree fitting should work well.
 
Hi Team,

I have found that all tailwheel RV's suffer from this problem and that usually you will need to regrease the tailwheel pivot shaft every 25 - 30 hours.

About 5 years ago I found that most of the grease was simply oozing out the top and none of it was getting to the forward or lower parts of the housing. In an effort to make life easier, a couple of us have modified the tailwheel pivot bushing so that grease is distributed a little more evenly around the shaft. this was carried out as follows:

I removed the tailwheel assy from the housing and placed a couple of strips of Aluminium about 1/8th" apart on the rear part of the housing so that the grease hole was visible. Using masking tape to secure them, these bits of alloy were to act as a guide for the dremmel tool so I didn't wander off across the bronze bushing at random. Using the aforementioned demmel tool (or whatever you have available - on the first aircraft I simply used a needle file) I cut a channel down from the hole towards the bottom of the bush. The depth of the channel started at about 2/3rds of the wall thickness of the bronze bushing and tapered off to nothing, finishing at about 1/2" from the bottom. If you were really keen and you had all the necessary tooling available to you, the best idea would be a spiral channel that does a complete 360 degree sweep of the bushing, but I don't have that sort of tooling available to me!

With this tapered channel we have found that the grease is distributed more evenly from top to bottom and I have found that if you lift the tail and spin the tailwheel assy while you pump in a bit of grease, it carries the grease to the forward side of the housing as well. In this manner we have been able to reduce the time between greasings to about 50 hours.

If you require clarification on anything please don't hesitate to contact me.


Regards to all.

Mike EVANS
New Zealand
 
Bruce,

Check the fourth 2003 issue of the RVator. This grease fitting has beeen removed because you don't want to put grease in there! The first time I greased mine (befoer the issue), the locking pin for the stearing jambed resulting in a free swivel tailwheel. Tom Green advised me to remove the gear, clean the bushing and lubricat with a greasless lubricant such as WD-40 or one of the LPS products. He also recommended to periodically put a drop or two of penetrating oil on the nut / washer. The oil will work its way to the pin and help kep it free. Do not overtighten the nut, this will also cause the pin to hang up.

Pull the tailwheel and clean / grease at your annual and every 100 hours or so.

Scott A. Jordan
N733J
388 hours



Brucelan said:
I continue to have this on again / off again problem with my tailwheel.

It seems to stick as though it doesn't have any grease in it. It is packed full of grease and swivels easily when I have it off the ground. The problem seems worse when I have a backseat passenger.

For example, when I am taxiing, I have to push pretty hard on one or the other pedal to get it to move. This usually results in an over correction. It then appears that I am a staggering drunk as I taxi.

I spoke to a tech at Van's and he said something like, "yup, that's what tailwheels do" and suggested I put more grease in it. It already squeezes grease out around the top nut when I put the grease gun on it.

I have the T. James tailwheel arm (which I like very much) but that doesn't seem to be part of the issue.

Anyone have any thoughts?

thanks,

Bruce
N297NW
 
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