A DAN Adventure

[Steve]

I would have preferred castellated nuts with cotter pins, as are used in the trim tab friction damper assembly and the nose gear axle shaft.

Both of those are self-locking on my aircraft, as are many others.

The pivot nut on my nose gear is a Nyloc, but the axle shaft is a castellated nut on a drilled bolt with a cotter pin. I'm sure of this, because it is a PIA to get the cotter pin in, and I have to replace it every year to inspect and grease the nose wheel bearings...

[Rich]

I would have preferred castellated nuts with cotter pins, as are used in the trim tab friction damper assembly and the nose gear axle shaft.

Both of those are self-locking on my aircraft, as are many others.

The pivot nut on my nose gear is a Nyloc, but the axle shaft is a castellated nut on a drilled bolt with a cotter pin. I'm sure of this, because it is a PIA to get the cotter pin in, and I have to replace it every year to inspect and grease the nose wheel bearings...

Inevitable thread drift: I've got the nose axle bolt thing figured out. The secrets are to line up the hole horizontally and hold the bolt steady while getting the nut tightened and also lined up. Cut the cotter pin length down before insertion, bend it a bit, and then insert from the front to the back. It is a learned skill, though.

But my point stands. There are many places where nylon locknuts are used on my plane (and many other things I have assembled) and none have ever come loose. Not once. BTW, if these nuts (both of them) come off and the rudder drops off the plane it does make for sloppy flying but isn't inherently catastrophic. And they are easily checked during preflight.

[Steve]

Sorry about the thread drift. I use that same method with the nose gear axle cotter pin. I've also never had a Nyloc loosen significantly either. One thing to remember for the less mechanically inclined is that Nylocs are supposed to be installed only once. When you remove it next year, you should discard and replace with a new one, and I always do. I wonder how many shops do that?

[mhoran]

Our plane is finally back home at Linden, with (nearly) all outstanding issues resolved. As reported in the private forum, the "governor leak" turned out to be a cracked pushrod tube cover -- with ~8 hours since repair there is no oil at the front of the engine. Still chasing a small leak at the oil filler tube, but hopefully a new gasket will resolve.

SouthTec stepped up and repaired the rudder crack at no cost. They removed the paint and found some light damage, so they patched it all up and it looks good as new. They also repainted our lower cowling as the fire paint kept chipping off with previous touch-up repairs. Hopefully that will be the end of that.

Happy to close this chapter and look forward to more fun flying as opposed to maintenance flying in the coming year. Really impressed with the level of support I received from everyone -- we could have been stuck with some steep bills for troubleshooting, repairs, etc. -- but everyone involved stood by their work and did right by us.

[dmloftus]

Congrats - glad you guys got everything squared away