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HR axle shim

Axle shims are used to correct variances in fabrication. If you are lucky they are not needed at all. That said, their requirement is very much dependent on your individual setup. You might need one side only, or one correcting for toe in on the left, and one for more camber on the right. There is no "one size fits all" approach. You just have to figure it out through measurement of your bird.

Here's mine. The shim is shown in red.

2vtbi1l.jpg


You may note that I changed the attach hardware to eliminate the threads loaded in shear. I used Hi-Loc pins installed from the other direction on three places.
 
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Has anybody used axle shims?

butch

Ha! I did on my 8. Took a lot of time measuring before drilling the gear mount holes to get the toe in/out perfect. When I got her on the wheels I measured again only to find to my dissapointment that it was way off. Ordered shims from Van?s to correct and installed them. Wore out the first set of tires in the first 100 hours and the plane was a little squirrelly so I checked the alignment again. Turns out I thought I made a mistake, but I was mistaken! Took them back out, installed new tires and Bob,s your uncle, everything?s is great! 300 hours on the second set of tires and they look like new! Squirrelyness disappeared as well.

But the real answer to your question is that you have to figure it out. Why did you order them? What are you trying to fix?
 
shim

Excessive wear on the inside,(45hr)I will have to resort to putting it on grees plates to determine.

Tail high or low?



butch
 
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How does the gear react when you push it around? Does it splay out going one direction, then reverse when going the other direction? Does the tire skip once it gets to a slippery spot on the floor/ramp? If so, then you have a toe problem. Since you have excessive inside wear, I'd bet you are toe out, which is causing excessive splay, riding and wearing the inside.
 
shim

Tail high (wheel landing)tracking loaded is perfect, Tail low camber and toe or poor.

butch
 
I'm sure there will be other opinions, but we tell the Rocket guys to set the alignment with the tail on the ground and with the plane loaded to average flying weight. So, put in 200# of ballast in the pilot seat, and fill the gas tanks before you start.

Doing it with the tail up only makes sense if you plan to taxi with the tail up. :eek:

Greased plates are the gold standard, but cleverly used Harbor Freight furniture dollies could be used too, even if they are a bit harder to hoist the plane onto.
 
BTW, Mikes hi-locs look like a great idea. Maybe he'll do us Rocket guys a favor and post the part numbers here!!!!!
 
Going from memory they are HL48-8-22. Will verify when I get home tonight.

Edit - memory verified. The above is what I used on my ship. Be aware that these pins have minimal extra thread length - similar to NAS series bolts. Per my usual practice I used MS21042 "jet nuts" on the other side. Makes a nice tight package. Not sure regular nylock nuts will fully engage anyway.
 
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