View Full Version : WARNING TO ALL HAWK PRO , SPORT, AND RAVEN OWNERS
redneckteddy103
04-08-2007, 09:33 PM
UNDER A FRIENDS ADVICE I DIS ASSEMBLED MY HAWK PRO . TO GET TO THE COUNTER GER SHAFT TO CHECK IT AND GLAD I DID ...... RIGHT UNDER THE PINON GEAR THE BEARING THERE HAS WORN A NICE SIZE GAP IN THE SHAFT I WOULD SAY I WAS 1 TO 2 FLIGHTS FROM LOSSING MY HELI !!!!!!!!!!!! I HAD TO SAND THE SHAFT A LITTLE BIT TO GET THE BEARINGS OFF DUE TO IT HAD CAUSED A BUR ON IT . HERES A PIC OF WHAT IT SHOULD NOT LOOK LIKE !!!!!!!!!!!!!! ON ANOTHER NOTE THIS IS THE 3RD TIME THIS HAS HAPPENED
RAV50
04-08-2007, 09:50 PM
I understand that they had a batch of these shafts that were made from too soft a steel. I am sure if you send them the pictures they will send you a new one at N/C, as they did to a friend of mine. :)
DavidH
04-09-2007, 08:24 AM
http://www.runryder.com/helicopter/t336807p1/
That should be easy to prevent. Use red or green loctite and loctite the shaft to the inner race of the bearing. I have had to do this on many different helis. Makes it a little more difficult to disassemble. But the shaft stays like new.
David
redneckteddy103
04-09-2007, 08:36 PM
hey Antonio thanks man your a top notch guy .
RAV50
04-10-2007, 01:33 AM
OK, what did Antonio do? WHat's the story?
redneckteddy103
04-10-2007, 06:52 AM
he just replaced the shaft for me .and was a very cool guy to talk to .
teamitk
04-24-2007, 01:47 PM
Yup. Add me to the list. My Hawk Pro has about 20 flights on it, and I tore it down all the way after reading this post. The counter shaft had considerable wear on the upper bearing location. I just decided to add the constant tail drive while I'm in there to replace that shaft. Will definitely loctite those bearings going back together.
I would like to give a big thanks for the heads up; I might have flown this thing apart otherwise!
I think that if Century chooses not to fix this concern, (even if it is as simple as loctite on the assembly line) at the minimum an addendum page should be thrown in with each kit so that people know about this problem! This is the only major problem I have come up against with this machine so far; and it could have been easily prevented.
*UPDATE: I was looking through the Century Raven manual, and it instructs to loctite these bearings to the shaft after assembly. The Hawk manual must not mention this due to the fact that these components are preintalled into the upper frame unit. Hopefully the Hawks will be assembled w/loctite in the future?
My story is a bit different my shaft is fine but the bearings blew apart and i lost my main rotor so much for my twinstar.
RAV50
05-18-2007, 11:37 PM
I have a number of Century helis that use this shaft. Some have over 450 flights on them....never had the problem.
But I have always used special shaft/bearing locktite on them (learned to do that many years ago with my X-Cell helis. (note: be sure to keep ANY locktite out of the bearings or this can cause failures of either the bearings or the shaft)
I think that this happens sometimes now, specially with their semi-arf helis, because upon assembly, some locktite may have found its way into these bearings.
Chris DeSain
05-24-2007, 07:33 AM
I also have a few with hundreds of flights on them. I have not even used bearing retaining compound or loc tite.
I was amazed when this cropped up as this heli had been bullet proof for some time.
It took a few failures to corrolate that there was somthing wrong.
It looks like a spec changed in the OD or ID in the parts shaft/bearing. And or the material of the shaft has changed.
This has been identified and if a customer has this issue they should call century.
My personal opinion is they should have a post on thier web page alerting this as a warning. I have requested this :wink:
redneckteddy103
05-28-2007, 03:15 PM
well to update this thread
Antonio is a great guy and i got the shaft and put it in . put some locktight on there with a little but of jb and have had 40 some flights now and i took it all apart just to see if any thing was loose and not even a scratch from the heli . it good to go for a while but just to be on the safe side i went and stocked up on some parts the lhs was likeing me but now they have to order parts . i have my own parts stock now like 4 of every thing and now that i am actually fly the heli around i have put on some razor 550mm blades and is smooth as silk