WHEEL BEARINGS After 12 months of use (with much taxiing in slush of our wet season) our wheel bearings were terrible. The felt seal did nothing except keep moisture and sand next to bearing!! for 12 months. We fitted proper bearing seals TC-12065 and bearing B-LM67048. To fit seal, wheel did need skimming out just a little - The wheel is a mix of US and metric sizes as are many German wheels these days. While on wheel topic the discs are available from Aircraft Spruce (thanks Nigel) at about half the price of Diamond. Also Service manager at Dimond Austria is Phill Shanks and is from Canada and one night I sent email and within 1 minute he was on the phone to me.
FUEL SHUT OFF VALVE Recently while up north Tom Gilbert phoned me re replacement of fuel shut off valve in h36 and my mind was blank but on reading log book I read my notes from the German books which says "10Apr90 valve replaced with new ball type valve which no longer has the 5 year replacement requirement" All they have done is cut off the arm of an off the shelf ball valve. I have gone thru the same exercise with old Scheibe in the mid 90s and they supplied a ball valve (with their SF part number and then LBA form1). To me it was identical (zero difference) from a valve available from I think it was "north coast fuel delivery systems" and it had an AS code for gas/fuel use. It is up to John Viney but I would say that is the way to go as if it works for gas then it must be good. We have had trouble with those old red diamond shaped taps with a fuel weep and I believe they are beyond their use by date in motorgliders. The valve Slingsby used was hopeless (always weeped) and was behind the pilots head. If you read the coroners report of a double fatal in a slingsby falke in WA must be 25+ years ago then he was critical on the placement of the valve where you could not see if it was "on or off" Bit like the John Denver problem. Does anybody have Bill and Val Wilkinsons address as they have hk36? Hope this is of some use Ian McPhee
