Grounded and frustrated!
Well my nose wheel was in fact backwards. I tried to make a joke about how I did not see and now had to fix it because it came backwards from the factory. Well I tried to fix it and now I'm really frustrated, and disappointed. It was a disaster and oh yea, it won't work any more and I can't fly. I went from pumped up to deflated.
I found found two set screws on the tiller arm at the top that looked like if you loosened them the strut would rotate 180 degrees and then the set screws could be retightened and done. I could only get to one so I had to remove the nose gear. I had left enough slack in the motor and steering servo wires to be able to just get it out of the gear well so not really a big deal. I loosened the set screws and the strut would rotate a little but not 180 degrees. You could feel a flat spot machined in the top of the strut that was hitting the set screws and stopping rotation. So I unscrewed the set screws almost all the way out and the strut rotated. Great!
I rotated the strut 180 degrees so the scissor links were in the rear. When I started to retighten the set screws disaster struck. I noticed a bunch of tiny ball bearings coming out of the strut joints and falling out. What I later learned was that I had allowed the strut to move up about a millimeter and it opened up 3 ball bearing surfaces and the ball bearings from each started falling out! The bearings are maybe .5 mm in diameter and they are all loose inside the strut bearing surfaces. So now I'm stuck holding the gear trying not to spill any more ball bearings and can't move it because of the wires attached. Great, not!
Last edited by Viper1GJ; 07-21-2021 at 03:49 PM.