Preventative Maintenance

[ClayK]

PMCS (Preventative Maintenance Checks and Services)

For you military folks... bring back memories? What should I be looking for? I broke 50 flights on the Raptor 50 last night.

My engine has been running slobbering rich. Pulled the plug last weekend, it's brown. She seems to have plenty of power, so no harm, no foul right?

Going to check all the usual screws, bolts, etc for tightness and what not.

Going to pull the head apart and lube the thrust bearings (she's due). Something tells me to check the tail box too, not sure what I should be looking for in there. (Ron's flight failure in Ohio is nagging me in the back of my mind)

Going to check all my linkages for tightness or slop and replace or fix as necessary.

Is there anything else in particular I should be looking for? Figured I'd rather have the downtime of PM today rather than repair from botched flying the day before a weekend fly.

[DebianDog]

Bearings on the motor.

[BarracudaHockey]

Lube the spindle (unless you are using cx or inf dampeners)
Lube the thrust bearings.
Lube the one way (triflow or atf)

On the tail inspect that the set screw in the end of the shaft is tight and the pin is in place and the belt isnt shedding anywhere. Take a peek at the belt and see if the teeth have good sharp edges.

Make sure the tail is nice and solid with no slop between the grips and the bearings.

And as Dan said, take a peek at the engine bearings.

Also take a look at your clunk lines.

[ClayK]

Also take a look at your clunk lines.


Just replaced both clunk lines at flight 29, about 2 weeks ago.

Also replaced head block, was "wiggly" at flight 39 (originally thought it was dampeners). Thanks Ron Henry!

[ClayK]

Lubed thrust bearings, oiled spindle, checked all fasteners, fixed some linkages and checked tail. Put off checking the engine until I can actual spend some time with her on the bench (wanted to get a couple of tanks through her today). Took her out just to get "the itch" out. Noticed sluggish tail and a horrible rattle on spool down after a couple warm up baby auto's (tail boom had come loose, belt slipped a little). Fixed that and ran a couple of tanks through her. On the third tank I noticed a high pitched whine, guess that means I'll have to check those engine bearings per the suggestions.

[islandheliguy]

No problem Clay. Glad that I had the head block handy so that we were able to get your bird running in top form. I've since replaced the gearbox and this time placed a piece of heat shrink tubing around the pin to prevent it from coming out similar to what the R90 guys are doing. The "permanent" fix will be coming in the next few months. Here's a pic of what Kasama is working on for the tail system. It's slated for the new bird, but will also be available for the R50.

[ClayK]

oooOOooo that was just what I was looking for the other day.... I was looking at cforcht's tailbox and trying to find something similar.

Blades woofed the other day, stripped pitch servo, barely got the bird in.... Replaced all the 3151's with 9252's (cept throttle), put in a regulated system (charging every couple flights was getting annoying as much as I've been flying), shimmed and tightened up blade grips until new dampeners get in (believe that's the original cause of the "woof"). Looking at doing a head block upgrade soon, what dampeners are you running in your Kasama? Been looking at Infinivation and Carbon Extreme mostly. I do like that Kasama head over the Quick head and the TT head.

Gotta give props where props are due. Ron can piro flip that bird all day long and it looks good! Gotta wait a few more months for that tail box?

[islandheliguy]

Hey Clay,

I'm running the Infinivation dampners. They work great with the Kasama head. The only thing you'll have to watch is that you'll tend to start bending spindles if you cane the machine at all. With all the metal in the head and then what are almost solid dampners, there's really not much give in the rotor system. If you haven't already, you might want to consider fliping the grips and mixing arms so that you're using leading edge control for your blades. That should pretty much eliminate any woofing. I should have one of the tail boxes for testing fairly soon but it's looking like a few months before it's officially released. If the head is any indication of what Kasama is capable of, it should end up being a slop free unit that performs very well.