Nose gear maintenance

[Dave S]

Today I decided to take the nose gear fork off and clean up the all the bugs, dirt & misc grunt that I have apparently dragged the nose wheel through.....

Going on year six since the build and hadn't pulled the fork off till now. What suprised me a bit was the appearance of the beginnings of some light corrosion on the tube the nose wheel fork rotates on....... Looks like the kind of stuff that would get out of hand if ignored too long.

Curious if anyone else has had this happen?

The bellville washers were in good shape; but, it looks like the oil/grease partially dried out inside and lost it's propection for the tube. Everything cleaned up real nice and I decided to use a generous supply of marine water resistant grease when assembling.

Prior to disassembly there was no indication of the fork stiicking and it worked just as it should.

Any ideas on what is a good interval for maintaining this assembly?

Sincerely,

Dave S
KF 7 Trigear
912ULS Warp Drive

St Paul, mn

[Av8r3400]

Another item for the annual condition inspection: Disassemble, inspect and service nose gear strut

[kitfox5v]

Remove and install on the tail.:eek:

[Dave S]

Remove and install on the tail.:eek:


You know...That could do it!

Dave s

[HighWing]

Remove and install on the tail.:eek:

Needed a laugh, got a laugh. Thanks.

[Paul Z]

Remove and install on the tail.:eek:

That's what just had done. :D However, now you have tail wheel maintenance.

[Esser]

Looks great Paul!

[Paul Z]

Esser, thanks for the compliment. But thanks goes to John & Judd at Kitfox Factory. They do great work. Now to get a few more hours of Stick & Rudder before I head home.

[Marvk7]

I saw 703KA while at the factory last week, still had the wheel up front. Looks great with the wheel in the back, Beautiful AC Paul.

[SWeidemann]

Nose gear folks,

I'm looking for information about the most common damage that happens during a nose gear "event".

In thoroughly going over my used Vixen, I have found evidence of some kind of force that poked a hole in the firewall exactly in the center and between the tubes behind the center console. I had heard this airplane had a nose gear damage incident, but no details were found in the log books or on the Title Search I paid for before I bought it. So far I have not located any other suspicious damage (other than a sheet of metal that was riveted over the hole) however I will be looking further. I imagine the damage was a nose gear collapse, however I cannot figure out what goes where in the geometrics of the airframe when that happens.

I suspect some folks on this list may be familiar with my plane, it was originally flown around Arizona as Vixen N526. I bought it from the second owner (who only flew it for 12 hours or so until he sold it) who had re-registered it as N24V.

Any info would be appreciated, so I can look in all the logical spots for any un-seen damage.

Thanks much,

Skot

[Dave S]

Skot,

I don't know if it relates to your observation - might check Kitfox's service bulletins

http://www.kitfoxaircraft.com/FAQ-Tech.htm SB 55 & 58 apply to certain aircraft

55 is about an earlier model front nose gear strut where cracks showed up in some cases on the gear leg sides - In this case, what might happen is the front half of the nose gear leg breaking off in a hard - nosewheel first landing:eek:......but that doesn't sound like the type of damage you have observed.

58 reflects observed builder error and applies to nose gear planes where some builders did not correctly modify the bearing area in the nose gear shock absorbing unit. This would result in binding and possibly breaking who-knows-what..

I am trying to visualize the damage you are speaking of; and, what comes to mind is if the upper top bolt on the elastomere donut stack may have broken or become unscrewed - that could possibly result in the top of the assembly tipping backwards on the rod end and punching into the firewall as the nosegear is no longer attached to the lower end of the engine mount. Please see the attached photo - a little grainy because I cropped it - but take a look at the geometry.

This is a bit of speculation on my part, but I have thought about the possible failure points of the nosegear.

FWIW - the bolt on top of the elastomere stack is an annual condition inspection item. If it fell out in the air - the result would be tha gear leg rotating down and the pointy end punching into the fabric from the bottom. On the ground, it would work the other way with weight on the nose ( and probably a whole lot less damage).

If you have a chance to get a photo - that might help people on the list with helping out.

Sincerely,

Dave S

[SWeidemann]

Dave & All,

Attached is a view from the inside of the punched hole in the firewall.

Skot

[Dave S]

Skot,

Wow.....can't think of anything involving the nose gear, considering that there is no other damage, that would make a rip like that. Whatever the cause, might not end up as a "common or usual" deal:confused:. Kind of looks like something that might not have involved the nose gear directly...maybe the fulelage slipping off a jackstand?????

Dave S

[Dave Holl]

Dave
I agree
I would have thought if the damage was done in operation there would have been far more damage to the surrounding structure. Looks like damage was most likley done during build or maintenance and like you say by something like a jack stand. I think I would have cleaned up the damage though!! The SS in this area is thin and doesn't take much to damage.

[WISDAN]

I had an inflight propeller failure last May which led me to a forced landing in a marsh grass field. All went well until near the end of my landing roll. The nose gear tube bent down and back, finally breaking off right before the attachment point of the rubber padded strut. There was no damage to any other part of the nose wheel assembly or the airplane which I thought was pretty good. These Kitfox's really fly well in dead stick situations!