aps f4u

I have been having trouble geting my retracts to lock out in the retracted position, because of the wheel(5" du bro tread lites) interfering with the top sheeting. I have contacted TF on this, and Tim at TF says that they were not aware of Robart reconstructing the retracts to fit better in the wing????

So I e-mailed Tim some pic's of my wing with retracts installed, and he replyed to me as that beeing the problem....the old Robart 622's keep the strut centerd over the wheel, as were the new ones are flush with the outside of the wheel , causing the wheel to protrude farther in t the well and contacting the top sheeting not allowing the retract to fully retract to lock out.

Even when I shimed them up on the rails, they still wouldn't lock out[>:] Tim says this is a problem on there end and may have to do some redesigning of the wing and contacting Robart on this issue as well.

Just thought I would share this with the rest of you, and for those of you starting on your wings....hold tight, and Tim says he will email me tomorrow once he gets the new retracts installed in there wing, and will let me know what they are going to do, and I will post what he said....

a

Capt Jim

My Feedback: (168)

I built the TF GS P-47 and used the new version of the Robarts. I called about the problem of the design of the kit being somewhat flawed, but got nowhere. They said they'd look into it and call me back...yeah, right!!! Thanx a lot Tim. That never happened. My fix was to switch the struts between the pair of Robart retracts....so that the lower section of the strut leg will be under the wheel when flying and retracted...not above the wheel as they were assembled upon arrival. Then I used shims of maple..."tongue depressers" or popsicle sticks,..to shim up the ply retract mounts...actually making the mounting suface somewhat unlevel from the original design. I sanded down the rib inside the wheel well to almost nothing up near the leading edge so as to provide wheel clearance...and then glassed the wheel well area as suggested in the plans. The wheel will now fully retract into the wing, and just barely bind on the glass up near the leading edge. Not too much of a bind, but enough to keep the wheel from rotating freely when it is up in the well. The Robarts lock up fine now, and the installation works. Maybe they need me on the design team....I sure could improve the TF manual. That thing leaves one guessing about a number of issues throughout the build. The pictures are tiny and not completely explanatory. A clean sketch would much better show the details. Oh well...I'm getting a litlle off topic now. As a little additional improvement, I carved up a pair of sand buckets...(beach toys)...and used them to line the wheel well. Nice fit, and makes the well a cleaner place....hopefully it will not gather as much dirt and grass, and be easier to clean up too. Being aware of the need for nose weight in this plane, I have installed a Zenoah G-62, and overlaid the kits motor box with more 1/8" plywood. It is a lot more rugged now, and it needs the extra weight anyway. As another convenience, instead of going through the hassle of inserting 1/4-20 motor mount bolts from the inside...I installed the motor using number 10 bolts from the front side, and big tee-nuts inside. That makes for an easier motor installation, and of course repairs, and general clean up will be easier to do with those bolts accessable right up front. The number 10 bolts fit nicely right through the threaded 1/4-20 holes in the motor mount.
good luck with your "jug".
Jim

Peter_OZ

My Feedback: (1)

guys the best approach woul;d be for TF to actually put the damn things were they are designed to go on the full size then no problems !! This is why I am modifying my wing so the retracts will be in scale location and I can fit a 6" wheel.

check out my build thread to see what I mean.

cheers
PEter

aps f4u

Hi again, I installed 1/4 inch shims and used the Du-bro 4.5 treadlites and they now lock out and don't interfere with the wing sheeting. although the wheels used aren't what is called for, this was the only way I found it to work with out having to butcher the mounting rails and weaken anything by relocating ect. I used #6-1" screws to fully go through the shims and pass through the original mounting rails and seems to be very rigid. I am not to happy with TF on this issue as Tim has never got a hold of me since I adressed the issue to him months ago and they said theyt were not aware of this and would let me know what they are going to do...HA! I still have not and probably wont ever hear from them, so every body building the TF GS P-47 needs to get on TF about this so something is fixed.

a

Capt Jim

My Feedback: (168)

Hey guys...my spin on this Jug issue is simply this. Top Flite is doing absolutely nothing to improve upon, or correct, it's many errors, and I doubt that they ever will. Speaking in economic terms...you just don't get much for some two hundred odd bucks these days. Additionally, their very old design of a kit is only one step removed from scratch building. Their idea of any contoured piece is to toss in another block of balsa and suggest that you learn the art of whittling. Very few of their parts are lazer cut, and the rest of the die cut parts do not fit well together, causing very sloppy fitting and mis-allignment issues that compound until you try to fit the wing to the fuse, and....oh well...you get the picture. The old saying "you get what you pay for" seems to apply here...although I wish that I would have known of all these issues before I spent my money on this kit. Now...some 225 laborious hours into the build, I am bitterly disappointed in the kit and I am terribly sorry that I did not spend the bucks and buy the Yellow Aircraft P-47. Yellow has invested much greater attention to scale detail and offers us much less of the "scratch" building type of work. For the scratch builder, there are fine plans from Ziroli and others. The bad word about Top Flite is spreading rapidly now, and the market will respond to the Top Flite issues with a "NO SALE". As for Robart. Their retracts are OK...not the best, but OK. Sierra seems to have the more robust retracts and of course it is reflected in their prices. In the end, my TF jug will fly, in spite of the kit manufacturers boo-boos, but I'll never persecute myself by building another one of their kits.
Best of luck to all.
Jim