Mark,
You have given us some outstanding ideas on building, so looking at
those brakes surprises me. The disks look very thin which wouldn't give
much heat transfer. I got a set that I think is Matco with nice thick disks
and good pads but they have ball bearings on both sides versus tapered on
one side for side load . They came off a retractable setup. I'm wondering
if that is any good. I have thought a lot about backup braking but don't
have any idea how.
Larry Bell
On Sun, Nov 9, 2014 at 5:43 PM, Mark Langford via KRnet <
krnet at list.krnet.org> wrote:
> Folks at Barnwell this weekend mayb have noticed I spent a lot of time
> fooling around bleeding my brakes Saturday morning. When I landed Friday
> afternoon, I discovered I had no brakes at all! Good thing it's a 5000'
> runway there. If I'd been at home, I'd have ended up in either a swamp or
> a corn field, neither of which is particularly appealing. Of course I
> should have tested the brakes before I left, but given that they won't hold
> the plane at full throttle (not even close), I've developed the habit of
> pulling off the asphalt into the grass, and doing a quick runup in the
> grass to check engine operation. Apparently I never actually used the
> brakes to realize that they didn't exist before takeoff. Energy
> conservation, I guess. And yes, the checklist needs updating.
>
> Anyway, even after bleeding from the bleeder up to the reservoir using an
> oil can from the bleeder end (thanks, P.F. Beck!), I still had no brake
> pressure on the right side, so further investigation revealed brake fluid
> puking out of the innards when the pedal was pushed. Probably a blown cup
> seal, which wasn't going to get fixed until I got home. But how to get
> into my 2600' long strip? I didn't even entertain the thought...I landed
> at nearby MDQ instead, with 6500' of runway. No problem, right? As luck
> would have it, given that it was the coldest morning of the year so far, I
> had topped the tires off before I left on Friday morning with 50 psi of
> air. Of course I didn't think of this until I was flying back home, or I'd
> have bled some out. I used well over 5000' of MDQ's runway to get stopped,
> and I finally switched the engine off to make the last turnout before the
> end. I found out this morning the runway has an uphill and a downhill, and
> I landed downhill. Duh. Mental note to self...pay attention to such
> things in the future.
>
> I came back Saturday night with new cup seals and pads, and rebuilt the
> brakes by flashlight, and this time the bleed job held. See the photo at
> http://www.n56ml.com/n891jf/brakes/toast.jpg for the culprit...pulverized
> brake pad and a cup seal that looks more like a fried egg than a brake
> fluid seal. Looks like neither belongs on an airplane!
>
> I think I see a set of Matcos or Grove brakes in my future.
>
> I have a set of "vintage" Enginetics go-kart brakes for sale though,
> "freshly rebuilt", if anybody's interested......
>
> --
> Mark Langford
> ML at N56ML.com
> http://www.n56ml.com
>
>
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