Hi All,
I hope you can help with a strange issue I am having with one of my 205's. I have 2 aircraft, S/N 195 and S/N 202. 195 has been modified with a 19" camera hole and have served me well with now having 14,000 odd hours of flying, the last 4000 odd have all been with various camera systems installed.
I recently purchased another aircraft to ultimately be modified with camera's but for now, we are using her for a runabout and crew training. The interesting part I now have is an issue with the nose wheel steering.

The steering on the aircraft without using massive amounts of braking is almost non existent. We have serviced the leg, lubricated all the steering linkages and collars, even tried disconnecting the shimmy damper on the ground to see if it freed up, but to no avail. We can put skid plates under the nose wheel and steer with the pedals and the nose wheel follows, but no action when taxying.

Both aircraft have the heavy duty nose forks on them, and both have the shim plate in the same direction, but the only difference we can see is the one that wont steer has a slightly different for on it. It has 2 "ears" molded on the back of the fork about an inch up from the axle holes.

I have looked at all the photos I can find on line and cant see any others with this style of fork, leading me to think it might not be the right one.

Has any one else had issues with poor steering on this type. Other than this issue, it is a great machine to operate, its just a pig to taxi.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Best Regards

Rob

When I bought my 205 it wouldn’t steer without braking, and the fork would stick fully extended. The bearing in the steering collar was packed with old grease and grit, and was barely moveable. I took the fork apart, cleaning the bearing with mineral spirits and repacking. That solved the nose not tracking. Replacing the internal bearings mostly solved the sticking fork. When the fork is stuck all the way out it is locked into alignment with the fuselage. It has to compress slightly to steer. I have 700 nose and 800 mains with a big fork. It steers noticeably better with a 600 nose tire. You should also check the interconnect linkage to the nose gear. My steering had noticeable deadband around center. Mechanic did something at annual after I mentioned it, and it is better than it was.

The fork with the tabs is off of a C310. It's for the fender to mount on, but other then that is the same. I'd follow JCs advice above.

jcadwell wrote:When I bought my 205 it wouldn’t steer without braking, and the fork would stick fully extended. The bearing in the steering collar was packed with old grease and grit, and was barely moveable. I took the fork apart, cleaning the bearing with mineral spirits and repacking. That solved the nose not tracking. Replacing the internal bearings mostly solved the sticking fork. When the fork is stuck all the way out it is locked into alignment with the fuselage. It has to compress slightly to steer. I have 700 nose and 800 mains with a big fork. It steers noticeably better with a 600 nose tire. You should also check the interconnect linkage to the nose gear. My steering had noticeable deadband around center. Mechanic did something at annual after I mentioned it, and it is better than it was.

Yep^^^^^^

Strut inflation is a big one.

The same issue happened to me many years ago. I learned to be sure there was some movement in the strut and to be careful with the strut pressure. Also heavy loads in the back would sometimes lock the strut in the fully extended position.

Believe me, when the strut is fully extended steering becomes an issue.

Check the strut bearing and ring pack support to be sure they don't have any cracks and that they move freely.

Rich

Hi All,

Thanks for the information so far. More work done today but still no answer on the issue just yet. I pulled the steering collar to look at the bearing, and although it was a little dry, it did rotate. Cleaned, washed out and repacked with Aeroshell 6 and reshimmed. Nice and free so connect all back up and try it. Nope, still wont steer.



Attached is the image of the gear, as you can see, the strut isnt overinflated so the lock isnt an issue. Oh, and thanks for the heads up on possibly being a 310 fork, I never even considered that one. Good call.

My only other thought or what I hope someone may know, why is the wedge plate used on the heavy duty leg?

With the wedge in place, the fork is raked forward which will change the castering effect. From what I can see, if the light nose gear was installed, the leg would be more vertical and possibly easier to steer.

I'm sort of at a loss to what to do next, except pull the entire leg and bungee mechanism and strip it on the bench and really start looking hard.

Any clues??

Thanks for the replies so far.

Rgards

Rob

I have the 310 fork on a C-182 powered by a 520 without the wedge plate. It steers just fine and has had no problems since it was installed years ago. The nose strut is the basically the same mechanism on both the 205 & 182 but the centering mechanism of the nose wheel is different.

I recall the 205 shows the wedge (shim) in the parts manual with the heavy duty nose fork, which is the 310 nose fork. Your pic shows the wedge in the correct position according to the parts manual.

FWIW, a friend had the 310 nose fork with the wedge on his 1963 205 and it was more difficult to steer than with the light duty nose fork. He was careful about aft loading to keep the strut from fully extending.

-0-

I was just looking at the parts manual and it shows that the heavy duty gear was available for all the 205's as an option, however it shows no wedge that I can see. I don't think thats your problem though.

Things are pretty tight under there where the bungee mounts to the pedal bar. Check your clearances. A bit of horizontal play in the pedal bar could cause some rubbing or binding. As I recall, it's tight enough so that if the bungee mounting bolt is slid in to the mounting hole from the right instead of from the left as the manual shows, there were clearance issues. While you under there checking for binding or clearance issues, check clearance on where the push-pull rods mount to the pedal bars.

Also move the rudder trim wheel full left and back to full right and see if it steers better either way. That would help rule in or out the bungee itself.

Ron

Did you figure this out? I notice given your serial numbers you may have some
Incorrect parts! Yours are before 480. So the torque link shouldn’t have that centering pad. See the parts manual page PDF 110 vs 113. That may or may not effect it. Also it does show the shim in the 205 manual.