Watch those Nosegear Plate Bushings

[cgmg]

First step in my preflight procedure is to check the tightness of my nose gear.

Last week I noticed a little play in the forks, so I snugged up the upper nosegear fork bolt, and the play was gone. But when I was taxiing back to the hangar after landing, the steering was really squirrelly. The front fork was really loose now. Put the gyro away, and drove home to check the assembly manuals.

Checked on the assembly manual when I got home, and figured out that the oilite bushings (part #0313) had gone bad. Went back a couple days later, took the assembly apart, and sure enough, the flanges on both bushings had broken off. The bushings had slid into the Noseplate Spacer (part #0115).

The Upper Nosegear Plate (0510) and Lower Nosegear Plate (0509) have an oversized hole for the bushing. When the flange breaks off, the bolt can waller around in both plates, giving me the loosey-goosey steering feeling. Fortunately for me, didn't waller out the holes in the plates.

It takes almost two hours to disassemble and re-assemble the assembly if you have a pod like I do. Due to the wallering effect slightly bending the two plates, I had to C-clamp the two plates together to be able to get the fork assembly over both bushings again. Those of you who have pods know this is a tremendous pain the rear to do!

This wasn't a life-threatening situation, but just wanted to inform those of you with the CLT kit to be aware of this problem. Don't assume like I did that snugging up the pivot bolt will solve the problem, it probably only makes the remaining bushing flange break off quicker.

We fly off of grass, and it's been four years since we built the machine, so this is not likely to be a regular occurrence. But those bushings are now going to be replaced each time I do the annual from now on.

Hope this saves someone else the headache of having to replace one of the Noseplates because they ignored the problem too long. I ordered spares the next day, and don't need them now. But replacing the noseplates looks to be at least a 3-hour job, if not longer.

[rehler]

If you have the old Air Command nose wheel setup with longer square tubes used on the CLT kit, then your problem will continue. They only had about 2"+ between supports for the pivot bolt which was about 2-1/2"+ long. With the longer fork tubes there is way too much pressure for the bushings to resist.

The fix is to add a 2" spacer and make the distance between supports about 4"+ and the pivot bolt about 4-1/2" long. Then it will work great. That's what I had to do on my gyro which is similar in design to the old Air Command setup.

If this is not your setup then never mind!

[gyroplanes]

That particular problem is prevalent on the "low rider" Air Commands as well. It is the weak spot in the aircraft as far as I am concerned. I think Air Command offers the tube style nose gear now. That would be my fix.

[ben]

ken,
do you have a picture of that fix on your nose wheel.

[cgmg]

Ken,

That is my setup, and thanks for the info. I will most likely wait until winter to try your suggestion. It's a real p-i-t-a to mess with the nose gear with a pod on.

I also may just try replacing the bushings at every annual. It's been four years of pounding the nose gear on grass strips before this problem really surfaced.

I agree with Ben, can you post a picture of how you spaced your plates out? That will give me a better idea of what I need to do on mine.

Next question: Are you bringing your machine to Mentone? If so, I can see it there. We have a working engine this year, and I fully intend to bring it to Mentone and do some flying with the pros.

Thanks

[Doug Riley]

Dennis Fetters had a habit of mounting Oilites in 1/8" al. plate, which just doesn't work. Oilites have to be mounted in metal as least as thick as the outside length of the bushing itself. The same problem crops up in the original joystick pivots. Thicker metal will help there, too.