First of all, I have been running my ABI-3224 tailwheel on my T-3 tailspring for 200 hours now and absolutely love it. They are expensive but worth it in my opinion if you do backcountry.

Despite greasing the tailwheel every 10hrs, it started to get sticky and prevent smooth control of the rudder and would stick and jump. Never any danger but it did make me look like a beginner on final. I contacted Alaska Bushwheels and this is what they suggested:


Hey Dan,
Couple things to look at here. First, I would check the tension in your steering chains. They should have just a little slack, as they can work somewhat against each other when too tight. Often that "sticky" feeling is the springs on the chain connectors stretching. Second, I would check to make sure the nut on the pivot bolt is not over-torqued. Rule of thumb is to tighten firmly on reassembly, then back off until fork moves without undue resistance. If neither of these troubleshooting options applies, you should inspect the internal components of the tailwheel for excessive wear/missing or shifted parts. Also, if you are running all 5 compression springs in your tailwheel, you can take 2 out and only run with 3. It's very common on lighter aircraft to run only 3 springs and doing so can give your tailwheel freer movement. I hope this helps, let me know if you have any other questions.


Its the last suggestion that made the tailwheel smooth as silk again, removing two of the five compression springs (part #7 on the diagram). As an aside, the tailwheel is well engineered and is easy to take apart and clean, just keep the assembly diagram handy to make sure you get everything back in.
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