Maule tailwheel

[astjp2]

Re: Maule tailwheel

Hmmm...well THAT decision has been made for me, at least temporarily. Put the tail in the air just now to fiddle-fart around and put new leafs in the tail, and yuck! spindle on the old 2000 is sloppy...really sloppy. A guy had gone through it about two years ago too. I have another old 3-24b sitting here that feels solid but haven't really looked at it, a couple real old Maule solid tire assemblies, and the yellow-tagged 8" pneumatic. Reckon it's new leafs and the Maule for now, Unless somebody drops from the sky with something else or hits me in the head with a ball-bat for the heresy of installing the Maule. :-)

Hadn't had a shimmy, but this thing is scarey-sloppy. Had compression instead of tension springs on it too. Mebbe the angels have been right-seat... Things like that usually don't get by me.

Soooo...another question...the Maule Co. instruction sheet is saying 10 to 15 psi on the tire...shouldn't it be 3 to 4 times that? It has a near-new McCreary tire on it.

Thanks

Its a split wheel so you need to be concerned about the tie bolts breaking, that is why the pressure is so low. Tim

[Stumpy]

Re: Maule tailwheel

Gotcha...shoulda realized that. I put a little over 20 in it but we'll see. Thanks Tim.

[astjp2]

Re: Maule tailwheel

Usually the axle will hold the wheel halves together even if the bolts break, its when you goto dismount the wheel from the axle, that's when it blows up in your face. Mains are the same way. You should always deflate your tires when dismounting them. There are other checks a mechanic can do but as an owner/operator, its best to not have air in it when removing the wheels. Reinflate the tires when they are reinstalled. Tim

[Stumpy]

Re: Maule tailwheel

Yup, absolutely...I store everything deflated and work on everything deflated. Extra caution prevails. When I was 17 I was helping in a friend's folks tire shop in Darby, MT and was standing there when an "expert" was messing with a split rim off a gyppo log truck. I kinda thought it should be in a cage. He proved not to be so "expert." Nice round donut hole in the ceiling and lots of blood scattered about (not mine). For an "expert" he surely did make a lot of noise. Things that can break, blow, or explode eventually will.

[wmfife]

Re: Maule tailwheel

When I was on USN Jet Line we had to check for hot brakes. They told us to NEVER approach the wheels from the sides... they could blow and the rims would cut us in two. Always approach hot brakes edge-on.

That said, it was my pneumatic Maule that was giving me shimmy like to shake the plane apart... not only were the keys and fittings worn but somebody had installed the wrong combination of leaf springs... basically the doubler spring had been replaced with the short top spring... so there were two shorts and just one long! How that got past all the annuals I will never know. (...GUESS who it was that spotted it!) Yep. Trust no one.

So now with a new set of leaf springs AND all new compression springs in place of the old tensions I shall endeavor to give it another try. After all the TC doesn't give a lot of choices. We shall see.

[adrozell]

Re: Maule tailwheel

Back when I worked on emb-145 and Saab 340s we did not have a cage. But we removed the valve before taking the tire off. Hard to hold air with no valve.

[Hank Jarrett]

Re: Maule tailwheel

In the Navy is was required to remove the valve core before working on the wheel. We still took the bolts out of the wheel halves with GREAT care and STILL had one blow up. Someone had cut the wire off of the valve stem flag so it could go on with the core still in.

Hank