Post by Britpilot on Nov 28, 2009 14:55:13 GMT 1
My local school sports field where I do most of my flying has fairly long grass and my landings on the stock SC LP wheels usually ended up in a nose over no matter how soft I touched down. I decided to fit bigger wheels and gave my cub my “Bush Ranger” landing gear mod. I used 2.75” “Lite Flight” wheels by David Brown products (Part # WH27-5527) for the main gear as they have big soft tyres and are very light. I used a “Great Planes” 1.25” tailwheel (part # GPMQ4242) as it seemed in scale with the main wheels. I bought these from my local Hobby Lobby store.
As the axle bore in the Lite Flite main gear wheels was to large for the standard SC axle I used a piece of .157” ID x .098” OD carbon fibre tube as a bush. This was a perfect fit in the wheel and on the axle. As I wanted to use the stock plastic SC wheel nuts I removed the boss on one side of each wheel with a 3/8” dill bit so as there would be a little more axle to thread the nut on. I inserted the CF tube into the Lite Flite wheels and secured it with a drop of CA glue. I installed the wheel assemblies on the axles tightened each nut so the wheels would still spin freely. To make sure the nuts stayed tight I used a drop of thread lock. A small squirt of my favourite lubricant “Corrosion X” on each axle made the wheels spin beautifully.
The tail wheel was a bit fiddlier. The width of the tail wheel was the same as the SC tail wheel axle which left nothing to screw a nut onto. Also the axle bore in the new tail wheel was too large. I found that a plastic “straw" from an aerosol can of contact cleaner fitted perfectly in the new tail wheel axle bore and would screw on to the SC tail wheel axle. I screwed a piece of this on to the threaded axle with a little bit of thread lock on it. I then slid the new tail wheel over this and crimped half of a blue automotive crimp type wiring connecter over the plastic “straw” and cut off the surplus. Not the best of engineering but it worked until I can come up with something better.
What a difference the bigger wheels make! Now almost every landing is a “greaser” and take offs are a lot easier with much more responsive tail wheel steering. Unless you always take off and land on very short grass or a hard surface you need to install bigger wheels on your SC. Plus the aeroplane looks really cool and the bigger main soft gear tyres help cushion those “arrivals” a lot better!
I'll blame it on the great photos that distracted me.