Hi all, I was flying the Kitfox 4 this evening and after I landed the second time and was taxiing back to take off again, something didn't feel right with the plane. Thought it was a bump first of all, then it wallowed real good and I stopped and checked what was going on. Here is what I found. Bearings blew out in the Matco 8" tailwheel. I have 150 hrs on the plane, and some of those are ski time, so maybe 125 hrs on this tailwheel. I think all I need is new bearings and that isn't to expensive. But here is what I'm going to do to avoid having a wheel fall off in the future. I will install a thin washer underneath the nut, so that even if the bearing balls all fall out like they did here, the washer will keep the wheel on the axel. Having the wheel come off at full landing speed could make for a bad day. I had a spare wheel so it was pretty easy to get it back in flying condition, but it could have been worse. Just figured I would give a heads up to you all. I'm including a picture of the spare wheel where you can see how much smaller the nut is than the bearing and why the wheel was able to come off. JImChuk
When I was battling my tail wheel shimmy, I checked the bearings on my slightly used Matco tailwheel. When I spun it, I felt some roughness. I pulled the bearings and discovered that on one bearing, the "seal" had failed and there was a bit of rust, dirt, corrosion in the bearing. I replaced all the bearings. Maybe Matco got a bad batch of bearings......?
The washer is definitely a good, "just in case" mod.
I had some large thin washers, 1/4" hole, and 1 1/2" diameter. I drilled out the hole to 1/2" and put them on the Kitfox and Avid. Wont loose a tailwheel now. I left the small diameter washer in place as a spacer between the bearing and the large washer so the large washer wouldn't rub on the wheel. JImChuk
PS I did call matco and talk to their tech guy. He didn't think it would hurt anything as long as the washer doesn't rub on the wheel. I was sort of suggesting that this may be something they might consider doing as well. I know if the wheel had flown off right as I touched down, things could have got ugly pretty quick.
Matco tailwheel issue
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