Nose wheel tube fit

[permagray]

By looking carefully at the engine mount, one can appreciate the challenge it must be to weld everything together and get all of the angles perfect. My mount is hopefully fully correct regarding the engine itself. However, the angle of the two mounting points for the nose gear bushings are at ever so slightly different angles. As such, I need to modify both the solid and split bushings in such a way as to create a slight eliptical cross section for the tube to run straight through both points. I feel that after about 8 hours of modification, I am at least very close.

Question: I seek to achieve two mutually-exclusive goals - to have the fit be tight without lash in any direction, and to have the wheel turn freely from side to side, and move freely within a limited compression range. I feel that the turning is too restricted, but I fear that any additional bearing material removal will create unwanted lash.

How much pressure is tolerable to initiate movement on the nose wheel - i.e. is there a break-away number in pounds? I have heard that one measure is that the rudder springs need o be able to center it in flight. I won't be able to test that for a while.

[ibgarrett]

Not that this is a great unit of measurement, but SlingTsi builder Aaron Stampa posted this YT video when he was working on his build - https://youtube.com/shorts/fpGjoksES-Q?feature=share

I know I had a lot of assembly, test, take apart, shave a little more off, put back together and retest. When I put the wheel assembly together on the engine mount the wheel wouldn't turn at all... so I had a long ways to go before I got to the easy movement.

Hope that helps.