Rubber and Oil ….

Well …. what do you get when you mix rubber and oil … there may be a few answers but probably an underlying theme will be nice lubrication !

Its not so nice when it comes together at an area where you probably don’t wish to have quite so much lube and slip …

3 smoke flights in and I was on my 7th or 8th landing post the addition of the smoke system … and I realised I was getting some of the excess oil over the tailwheel .. I made a small leather boot but it was already pretty moist.

On the 8th landing I got quite a bit of wheel shimmy at the end of the roll out …. on parking up i wondered if it was a bearing … but on investigation proved to be an interesting small problem….

The oil had wet the tailwheel bungee rubber and then the ‘loop around’ had slipped up the tailwheel shaft and popped onto the (smaller diameter) main shaft. This had the effect of slacking the support .. hence allowing the natural resistance of the bungee – Now gone – to let the wheel have more free movement.

Easy fix .. clean it all down and remove the oil and then cable tie the bungee top and bottom loop together