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Does my plane track straight while taxiing?


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Hi Guys,

 

Does your plane track straight when you taxi?

Next time you go out get lined up straight and take you feet off the peddles. Now does it continue in a straight line or veer left or right?

If it veers then it is an easy fix and no you don't need Ace hardware. :lol:

The cowls need to come off. Then you will need to know which direction it veers, so let's for the sake of an example pick left. Down on the bottom of the plane at the top of the front strut there is a control head with two control rods. One on the left and one on the right.. If your plane pulls left then that means you need to pull the steering head more to the right to bring the front tire a little more right. You can either lengthen the left bellcrank or shorten the right bellcrank. One may be screwed out much farther than the other or screwed in much farther than the other. Pick the one that won't either bottom the bellcrank too far in or take the one screwed way out any further. If they are more or less equal then either will work. Let's say they are equal for now. Let's go to the left side and now we need to break loose the locking nut that secures this bellcrank. First you need to hold the rod with something like a pair of vise grips because you do not want the rod to break loose from the lock nut on the inside of the tunnel in the plane. If you do break it loose then you will have to get in there to tighten this back up. You really don't want to have to do this if it can be avoid. It is a very tight small area and you will need two people to fix this.

So while holding the control rod loosen the lock nut on the out side by the control head. Remember we want to push the front tire to the right so we need to lengthen this. If it is a very slow pull to the left then lengthen the bellcrank by 1/2 turn. If it pulls fairly steady to the right then lengthen it 1 full turn. (You could have split the difference on each side too. You could turn right side half the way and then the left side half the way.) Now when you took the control head screw out from the bellcrank you noticed it was under some tension. So when you go to put it back in make sure the screw is straight so you don't cross thread it. I have a short seat I sit on. I hold the wheel with my feet and one hand on the peddles then align the screw hole and bellcrank hole and screw it in. Make sure it has a drop of Loctite 243 (blue). There is also a small spacer in between the bellcarnk and the steering head. Don't lose it when you take this apart and make sure it goes back when you reassemble. Now tighten the bellcrank lock-nut. Don't for get to hold the rod from moving. The torque on the lock nut is 80 in/lbs. Now take it out for a taxi and check to make sure you are taxiing straight. If not then come back and make one last adjustment. Most of the time it takes 1 full turn so that would be my starting point.

 

 

This should take care of any minor steering issues while taxiing.

 

There are different rules in different countries, so remember to have a mechanic do things that you are not allowed to do when you read anything on this forum.

 

 

p.s.

If while doing a steering head check you find the control rods loose. Get them tightened up right now.

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  • 1 month later...

If the rod is loose and can be turned by hand, but the lock nut on it near the nosewheel is tight, do I worry about the lock nut under the center console? WF

 

If things are set up correctly you should have some rotation from the ball joints themself. If the screw is removed and you can rotate it over 1/4 turn you should try to get the lock nuts tightened. I had to bend a special wrench to do this job. Tom

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Hi Wayne,

 

The steering rod should not turn. That is why I say to hold it with a pair of vise grips when you loosen or tighten the outside locking nut. If the one inside becomes loose then you must take out the lower center console and het a 13mm wrench and have someone reach way back in there to hold it while you tighten the rod from the outside. It can be done, but is is a little by feel as much as sight. You may be able to turn the nut on the inside a tad to tighten it, but you can't turn it very much because of where it is located in the tunnel. It's a pain to tighten so that's why I tell people to hold the rod from the outside from turning anytime you mess with locknut on the outside.

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Hi Eric,

If you were to get carried away yes it will. If you only adjust them one turn not a big deal. You can affect the cable tension if you were to screw these bell cranks out or in excessively. No one's front steering should be off that much unless there has been some sort of damage or change in the linkage some how. To do an adjustment to change the steering left or right you can turn one of these bell cranks in or out so long as you move the wheel in the direction you want it to go. You can do something like this: turn one bell crank 1/2 turn and then turn the other bell crank 1/2 turn the other way. Kind of a push push pull system. If the cables were to get too loose then steering may wander all over on taxi and you would then need a lot of pedal to get the rudder to move because there would be excessive play in the control cables. Conversely you don't want these cables banjo string tight. In the FD manual there is a procedure to follow if you had to set one of these systems up for the correct tension. Almost everyone should be ok so long as all you do is make a minor correction to the steering rod bell cranks.

 

Make sure when you loosen or tighten the locking nut on the steering rod bell crank that you hold that rod with something like vise grips. If the rod comes loose then re-tightening is a PITA.

 

p.s.

Usually you only need 1/2 - 1 turn to fix a steering left or right issue.

 

 

p.s.s.

Eric,

I'm starting to get this funny feeling that after you get your RLSM-A that I may have someone looking over my shoulder for a while! :o

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