I finished the installation of the Airglas fork and 8.50s on my '56 172. The brake pad on one side is rubbing the tire slightly. How are people addressing this issue?

The brake pad or the caliper?

You need a spacer that goes in between the brake disc and the wheel, it moves the caliper out slightly from the wheel and will prevent rubbing. You will also need slightly longer bolts through the wheels. I had this issue with my 26" bushwheels. I called Wup at AKBW and bought 4 spacers and 6 new bolts with washers and nuts for $100. You will probably only need 1 spacer per wheel. I'm not sure if you can still get these from AKBW under the new ownership but they would be my first call.

Thanks Rob, I will give ABW a call tomorrow.

Jeredp, installation looking great. But I agree, you need the spacer. You can "sometimes" get a bit more clearance by re-clocking the calipers to the top of the wheel assembly: The bottom of the tyre squishes out significantly, especially at reduced pressure, although in my experience with 8.50's on various aeroplanes, not much advantage to running below 12 psi, and 18 to 24 is more like it. The 8.50x6.00 6-ply sidewalls are pretty stiff (especially the Goodyears), so they don't spread out like the radial ABW's, but enough to rub if no spacer.

Thanks. cubscout

I ordered the spacer kit from ABW today. Apparently when the business went north, so did the prices. The kit with bolts and spacers was $177+shipping.

The kit with bolts and spacers was $177+shipping.

Merely 17.7% of an AMU.

Cary

Can somebody please tell me what an AMU is?

jaudette wrote:Can somebody please tell me what an AMU is?

I'm glad you asked! I felt too dumb to ask!

Aircraft Maintenance Unit ($1000)

Lol

whee wrote:Aircraft Maintenance Unit ($1000)

Also known as (AKA) Aviation Monetary Unit, or, more simply, Aviation Unit (AU), which is, coincidentally, the the chemical symbol for that other precious metal, gold!

Not just maintenance stuff. The point is that anything you do to or with airplanes costs some order of thousands of dollars. Best expressed in whole numbers and tenths, and has the advantage of expressing non-aviation expenses in the same "gold standard" currency, so you know what you gave up when you spent it.

As in "The orthodontist says my kid should have braces, but they'll cost around five point six Aviation Units. That's about what a new Powerflow exhaust system would run, and I'd pick up a few HP. Heck, the kid's teeth aren't any worse than mine . . ."

If it's rubbing just slightly and you have fairly new pads, a cheap alternative is to sand the pads down a hair.

Mine rubbed just very slightly right after installing the 850's. but after a few dozen hard usage of the brakes, the rubbing went away.

140flyer wrote:

whee wrote:Aircraft Maintenance Unit ($1000)

Also known as (AKA) Aviation Monetary Unit, or, more simply, Aviation Unit (AU), which is, coincidentally, the the chemical symbol for that other precious metal, gold!

Not just maintenance stuff. The point is that anything you do to or with airplanes costs some order of thousands of dollars. Best expressed in whole numbers and tenths, and has the advantage of expressing non-aviation expenses in the same "gold standard" currency, so you know what you gave up when you spent it.

As in "The orthodontist says my kid should have braces, but they'll cost around five point six Aviation Units. That's about what a new Powerflow exhaust system would run, and I'd pick up a few HP. Heck, the kid's teeth aren't any worse than mine . . ."

That's friggin hilarious!