Venture 30 slop

[hueyman]

I've noticed a lot of clearance in the main gear mesh at both the tail belt drive gear and pinion gear. I just replaced the main gear. I have less than .002 side play in the main brg., pinion brg. and tail gear shaft brgs. I've adjusted the engine mounting to bring the pinion as close to the main gear as possible without misaligning the clutch but the mesh still seems very loose (outside of clutch bell can rotate approx. 1/4" before main/pinion gear mesh). The brgs. are tight in the frame and there just isn't much side play at the clutch bell or the tail belt gear/pulley shaft. I changed the main gear because 2 teeth broke on the previous gear after one gallon of fuel used for normal sport flying....no crashes or heavy loads on the gear. Is this a common problem on the venture 30? would it help to go with the metal main gear?
Also, i want to attempt to tighten up the swashplate slop but tightening the 3 adjusting grub screws doesn't seem to have an effect. I don't want to torque them too much and bugger the swash up. There isn't a lot of play but the swash could be tighter. Has anyone successfully remedied the swashplate slop by adjusting these 3 screws?

thanks, Mike

[gotak]

Some designs do not have tight gear mesh. In fact some people would say slightly lose mesh is a good thing cause tightly meshed gears wastes power. If it's mesh well enough that you don't break any more teeth I wouldn't worry about it.