Thanks Rob Lees!

[VictorBravo]

Thanks for the excellent dissertation on your website regarding the Shinn brakes Rob ... I had occasion today to be cleaning and reassembling my wheels and brakes, and your information made it all a lot easier.

I thought I had "burned up my brakes" and needed new linings, but it in fact was only a case of poor quality grease used on the wheel bearings, which liquefied under the heat of hard braking, and fouled the linings with slippery muck.

A good cleaning and they are now almost as effective as before. I actually ran it up to 2000 screaming, snorting RPM and held the aircraft with the brakes today.

I'd still love to have Cleveland hydraulic toe brakes, but for the time being (considering my wing fitting problem in another thread), I will leave them as is.

Bill Berle

[mhorowit]

Re: Thanks Rob Lees!

A good cleaning and they are now almost as effective as before. I actually ran it up to 2000 screaming, snorting RPM and held the aircraft with the brakes today. Bill Berle

Bill - what did you use to remove the grease? - Mike

[VictorBravo]

Re: Thanks Rob Lees!

I used COPIOUS amounts of spray-on "brake cleaner", old toothbrushes, and lots of clean rags tio get the oil and grease off the metal brake parts. I also did the same thing with the brake linings inside the wheel. There was grease and brake dust caked, baked and piled up everywhere. The gap between the ends of the brake lining in the wheel was filled and packed flush with the lining surface. I turned about five clean rags into filthy rags.

(however, if I had it to do over, I might consider sitting the wheel in a tray of solvent for a few minutes just to reduce the amount of scrubbing.)

Also, in accordance with an old T-crafter at the airport, I hit the steel brake shoes with 150 grit sandpaper. This took a black surface and made it into a mottled steel and black surface. My brake shoes had pitting and black brake material embedded into the metal I think. The sanding exposed a lot of shiny metal but I didn't want to sand the overall thickness of the metal down, so I stopped at about 60/40 steel to black color.

The I gave it a final cleaning of the "clean" surfaces with MEK.

Bill