Just this past Sunday morning, I went to the airport to fly to a fly-in at a neighboring airport about 30 miles away. When I opened the hangar door and walked up to my plane, the first thing I noticed was the right main was flat. Bummer.... this is after 120 flight hours and numerous pre first flight hours of taxiing. Anyway, I removed the tire and split the wheel. There was absolutely nothing in the tire and when I inflated the tube, there was a microscopic (super small) hole in the very center of the outer diameter of the tube. The tube was made in China with Shin (tire and tube mfg) stamped on the tube with white ink/paint. These tubes are only $7.50 at wicks but I had remembered seeing a large variety of tubes at the local ACE Hardware store so I took the tube there. Lo and behold, they had the exact size 11x4.00x5 so I compared the tubes and they were exact in every marking on the tube. Exact words, exact patterns, exact everything except it did not have Shin stamped on it. Needless to say, I bought it for $7.79 and installed it on my plane. As far as lifting my plane to put the tire on, I use a hydraulic floor roller jack. I place a block of wood directly under the main spar at the outer edge of the stub wing and jack away. Never had a problem doing this and I have done it several times. I have devised a better way to jack the plane up using a small bottle type hydraulic jack and a clamp which attaches to the gear leg but I have not made the clamp yet so it is still on the drawing board.
Mark Jones (N886MJ) Wales, WI My Web site: http://www.flykr2s.com/ Mailto:[email protected] -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]]On Behalf Of [email protected] Sent: Wednesday, August 30, 2006 8:48 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: KR> Great landing followed by a flat tire Hi Do you guys have creep marks on your tyres. They are mandatory in UK. The purpose of the mark is to make sure that the tyre is not moving on the rim, if it does, it will tend to rip the valve out. It's more of a problem with Tundra tyres that run at low pressure, not quite so important on titchy little wheels with 30psi. I agree with Mark that pinched tubes are probably the most common cause of flats, however deflating and moving the tyre around and reflating to cure that problem is probably a wasted exersize, if the tyre is pinched, the damage is done, further movement, talcum powder or no, again risks pinching the tube. best way to avoid pinching is put a little bit of air in then push the tyre around to make sure that the tube is not caught. While on the subject, what is the best way to go about reparing a flat on Deihl suspension. Reading Mark's report he talked about lifting the wing by the wingtip - ok perhaps on carbon wings - but how do the the rest of us mortals do it ? Pete
