Tailwheel Leaf Spring

[dehavalandb]

Hey Folks,
I had one of the tailwheel leaf springs break on me yesterday (No the landing wasn't hard), from old age. And I was wondering if someone had one laying around they could sell me. I will pay a reasonable price and pay for next day shipping. I am operating the Scott 2000 Tailwheel, the spring is 1 1/2" wide and the bolt holes are 3/8". Thanks in advance.

Jonathan Howells
46 BC12-D N34236

[Robert Lees]

Jonathan,

It may be of help to potential donors if you know which one is broken. I attach a typical photo of my Scott 2000 set-up as general guidance.

If you get real desperate, go speak with a blacksmith...or someone used to dealing with leaf spring suspension for cars...they might be able to modify a car leaf spring for you. We quite often get new springs this way.

Rob

[dehavalandb]

Mine is identical to the one in the photo. The bottom spring is the one that broke. It broke just in front of were it attaches to the tailwheel. It is a really clean snap. Maybe the cold of Montana had something to do with it.

Jonathan Howells

[Jim Hartley]

Hi Jonathan, I do not have a spring and I encourage those that may to respond to your request. Your post spurred my memory to an incident I had a year ago. The bolt that holds the tail wheel assembly to the spring, broke on my craft as I was taxiing for take-off off and as a result my rudder came down on the ground an damage was done. Fortunately I was moving slowly or damage may have been significant. With help of friends we found the bolt and it appeared to have a hair-line fracture half way through the shank of the bolt...rust and oxidation... Judging by the appearance of the bolt overall it seems that it had been in service many, many,years. Hard to tell for sure. I have a theory that the tailwheel assembly may have been dropped on the concrete at change-over to floats and as a result received "blunt force trauma". I will change bolts every few years and will be apart of the process when ever possible.

[Robert Lees]

Jim, further to your comment:

We have has three tailwheel bolt failures (all resulting in similar rudder damage) over about 2000 hours of operation on the same aircraft (albeit not the tailwheel in the above photo) So we replace these bolts annually.

The "cropping" action on the rear tailwheel bolt due to the relative motion of the two lower leaf springs needs to be checked for. In the above photo, the intentional break in the centre leaf spring should prevent this.

Rob

[CraigH]

Jonathan,
Have you tried Aircraft Spruce? I don't have the big catalog in front of me (I'm at the office), but they show a T-craft tailwheel spring kit (part# 05-09020) on the online catalog.

I had to order a set of springs for my Cessna 140 from them last spring.

[Robert Lees]

In the "tailwheel" section they also show BC-12D spring set P/No 06-14300 for 1-1/2" width spring, differnt price?

Jonathan, you might have to call them to determine any difference in the parts!

Which ever way you go, replace ALL the bolts while you are there.

Rob

[mwarman]

Re: Tailwheel Leaf Spring

Which spring failed, top, center or bottom

[jgerard]

Re: Tailwheel Leaf Spring

Trust me here, just replace all of them. I just broke one my self today. Will be ordering a complete set. No rudder damage thank goodness! did not break both lower ones, but the one that is still there is "flexed" a lot more than I like.

http://www.univair.com/shopcart.asp?service=Add+to+Cart&pid=ub%2D562set&name=tcraft%2520tailwhl%2520spring%2520set&price=102%2E49000000000001

Jason
N43643

[zero.one.victor]

Re: Tailwheel Leaf Spring

My Spruce catalog sez $116 for the set of 3, seems like cheap insurance. Glad they didn't both break and let the t/w tear up your rudder, Jason.

Eric