Tail wheel spring

[SvingenB]

The angle brackets for the tail wheel "spring" (titanium rod) seems to be positioned too low. I have the machined angle kit. The problems shows up when trying to get the bolt in there. Has anyone else had this problem? and what have you done to solve it? New brackets with the bolt hole further up?

[tonyr]

Looking at your photo the mount hole in the bracket does not look central...
would swapping the left and right brackets over, reposition the hole higher?

[SvingenB]

They are centered, it's only the angle of the picture that is off.

Yes, swapping would reposition. God idea. It will ned some trimming as well, and possibly drilling a new hole inn the spring rod. I have the 6" wheel, which already has moved the tail 1-2 inches up.

[Klimek]

The hole is located too low. I did not want to cut out an arc in the lower longeron and so made two new angle brackets, drilled
and installed. I did not have to re-drill the tail wheel spring / rod. I bought the 5" wheel from Vans and tail wheel bracket from Kip
Laurie. Plane stance looks great. Also did not cut holes in the fuselage skin for cross bolt, just a very tight fit.
Frank
ONEX090

[SvingenB]

Turning the brackets around worked just fine, thanks.

[dirkverdonck]

Hello,
I had the same problem a while ago and didn't want to cut through lower aft-fuselage longerons to install the tailwheel rod bolt and made two new L-brackets and drilled the hole about 1" higher so the retaining bolt could be inserted and removed through holes in the side of the fuselage wihtout compromising aft-fuselage strength.

Remember that the angle required to drill the hole through the rear attachment of the tail rod changes!

Dirk Verdonck
OneX 117

[SvingenB]

Remember that the angle required to drill the hole through the rear attachment of the tail rod changes!

Yes, the angle. The drawings say this can be done by hand, which sounds close to impossible, but maybe not, it's a rather large hole too. How did you do it?

[Don_P]

I thought long and hard about how to drill the slanted hole in the rear spar strap (ONX-T08-09) and doubler (ONX-T08-16). Also, I talked to several other builders, all of whom seemed to have had difficulty with this task. I finally went to a local machine shop and got a master machinist to do the job on a milling machine using a carbide bit. The hole cost me $65 but was absolutely perfect. I highly recommend this to anyone who does not have the precision cutting tools or the skills needed to do this task.