Another Blade Upgrade Part FAIL!

[Gyropilot]

Well that was a complete waste of $8.99...

I thought I'd treat my 450X to a "BLH1655A Aluminum Tail Drive Gear Pulley Assembly" to compliment the Lynx CF frame and all the other Lynx aluminum stuff it has. I installed it then immediately discovered that beautiful little aluminum pulley was apparently manufactured with its hole off center so oscillates on the shaft! This causes the tail rotor drive belt to vibrate as it tightens and loosens with each rotation of the tail drive gear pulley.

So off it came and the original (with the plastic drive gear pulley) went right back on.

Sigh!

[PaoloFCantoni]

Hey Giovanni,

I'll have to check mine also! I've got more or less the same setup as you on the tail. I must admit that I didn't check it very rigorously when I put it in.

Short of disassembling it (the pulley out of the frame), are there any checks I can do with it "in situ" to see if all is OK?

Paolo

[WedgeD]

I had the same exact problem at the other end of the boom with the Blade so-called "upgrade" vertical tail shaft with the metal pulley. The pulley was off center and moved in and out in reference to the front of the boom. Blade upgrade metal parts are mostly junk. The swashplate was horrible. I'm definitely not a Microheli fan, but their swashplate is light years ahead of the Blade garbage.

[Gyropilot]

Originally Posted by PaoloFCantoni

Short of disassembling it (the pulley out of the frame), are there any checks I can do with it "in situ" to see if all is OK?

Yes... it's simple...

Just slowly spin the main shaft around by hand while watching the tail drive gear pulley. If it's not running true, you should be able to see it pretty easily.

Regards,

Giovanni

[Gyropilot]

Originally Posted by WedgeD

Blade upgrade metal parts are mostly junk.

Agreed, and I'm done wasting my money on them.

[WedgeD]

Oh, I see, Gyro...

We were talking about the same part. I thought (mistakenly) you meant the tail rotor output shaft in the tail case. The reason I changed mine out for the metal part was because I'd read of some people having the plastic pulley wearing out and sort of "dishing" inward where it was shallowest at the middle of the pulley. They said they were having belt skipping problems. When I saw how bad my Blade, ahem, "upgrade" part was I realized that the stock tail shaft with the plastic pulley at the other end never had this problem. It still looks like new. So, back in went a new stock tail drive shaft up front with a plastic pulley. I'll bet those people having problems with it wearing out were running their belt tension way too tight.

The funny thing is that Blade "upgrade" part had been in my 450X for a long time and I'd never noticed any issues. It was only when I recently built it up on the Lynx frame that things started acting up (weird skid dance on spool up/down). I changed that part back to stock and, boom... Fixed.

[Nelsonisms]

That's another part where I've learned my lesson to stick with the stock parts. The main & tail grips being the other ones. I've used various metal pulleys for the tail belt and they always tend to cause more trouble than they're worth. I've never had the plastic pulleys wear down, but I have had the metal ones destroy a belt in short order.

[WedgeD]

Originally Posted by Nelsonisms

That's another part where I've learned my lesson to stick with the stock parts. The main & tail grips being the other ones. I've used various metal pulleys for the tail belt and they always tend to cause more trouble than they're worth. I've never had the plastic pulleys wear down, but I have had the metal ones destroy a belt in short order.

Yeah, I just found that out with the Lynx metal tail rotor assembly. Caused vibes when there were none before. Thankfully, Helidirect gave me a full store credit and didn't even want it back.