Zenith Aircraft Builders and Flyers
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Main Gear Rubber Spacer Slippage Cure
I have about 250 hrs on my 701 and I've had to readjust the main landing gear rubber spacers several times, especially after a hard landing. I never had the bottom rubber spacer slip, only the top one. I added a 90 mm "L" angle bracket under the strut bracket to keep the rubber from slipping out. I went out and did some intentional hard landings and so far the rubber spacers are staying in place. I also set up my GOPRO to see if the edge of the bracket had any chance of hitting the gear during the landings and the video showed no interaction.
I know a couple of other builders have had this same issue, give it a try.
Keep building and Flying!
David N913PN
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by John Austin on
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David,
Are your tensioning nuts bottomed-out on the threads and perhaps the rubber spacers aren't being held firmly enough? If so, Buzz at Buzz-Air gave me a good tip - He recommended placing 2 spacers (instead of 1 as per plans) underneath the landing gear on each side. This keeps the nuts from running out of threads and clamping force, and also gives a greater range of adjustability of the clamping force. I did this on my 750 and it worked great!
John
N750A
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Permalink Reply by David Orr on
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John,
No they were not bottomed out and were plenty tight. I did the "Roger Gear Rocking Check" from his video and everything was tight.
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David - Glad that wasn't the problem and your fix looks great! I do, however, really like the "2 under and 1 over" rubber spacers - the adjustability range is much greater and the gear seems more compliant when going over bumps, etc., but still passes Roger's "rocking-the-gear" test.
BTW - another tip! There have been previous discussions about difficulty in notching the ends of the rubber pads where they must clear the retaining studs. I used an appropriate-diameter hollow punch, backed the rubber pad with a piece of wood in a vise, and then used the other jaw of the vise to drive the punch through the rubber. (A hydraulic press would work great, too). You get an extremely clean notch punched-out with smooth edges that is not prone to cracking, etc.
John
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Permalink Reply by Jerry Griego on
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John and David . Thanks for this post on the Rubber spacers. I had the same problem yesterday. I was taxing out to the runway when I noticed my landing gear was moving forward and backwards. Thanks for the ideas on how to solve this. Where do I find "Roger gear rocking check".
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Jerry,
Roger from Zenith did a short video on how to check your main gear. Basically you put your foot on the tire and hold on the strut and rock the tire back and forth and the main gear should not rock. Shoot Roger an email and get the link.
Thanks
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Here is the link to Roger’s “gear check video”. https://youtu.be/eZVIhZGkqwE It is under his Blog posts.
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