BE-40
Senior Heliman
Location: Trinity, NC
| I know this is a long post but it's worth the read:
After several weeks of troublshooting my Venture I have finally got a great helicopter back in service. Spending about 100 dollars on bearings, clutchs, start shaft, thrust bearings, radial bearings etc.....
It now flys way better than before...even with a .32os
If you have been reading my few post on rcuniverse.com, and here about my troubles ( Listed as "Fan Runout" here, and on rcuniverse posted as "Venture owners please read") then you can follow along better.
Well I found several bearings going bad, however I also had that Main drive gear rubbing the frame. Fixed that, The new main drive gear and auto sleeve fixed that play that was allowing the gear to rub the frame. Tks to horzion for the free parts on that.
However, I pulled out the little bearing that is pressed into the clutch bell. Was going to replace it, but had to buy the whole clutch bell assembly so I repacked it with grease and it seemed fine anyway. I was just replacing everything from the engine up to the start coupler. Well when I put the bearing back in the clutch bell, after heating up the clutch bell and putting the bearing in the freezer, I applied a little red locktite and placed it together. It worked freely and I was happy. But wait now, here comes the biggy. I then screwed in my gear pinion and when I snugged it up it PUT PRESSURE ON THE SMALL BEARING (inside the clutch bell) WHICH LOCKED THAT BEARING UP NOT ALLOWING IT TO SPIN FREELY. Well that explained why my old start shaft had a very sharp (razor sharp) edge worn on the top of the enlarged area that sets up against that bearing. It was metal spinning against a locked down bearing transferring lots of heat and wear
. Also it would spin with engine and squall, squawk, moan and groan and all those other sounds that tell us something isn't happy. I backed off the pinion gear about a 1/8 turn from the bottom and it freed up the bearing to spin. Marked the gear and clutch bell to see if it rotates after awhile, but I think the red locktite is going to hold it just fine. It was hard to tell if that bearing was spinning freely or not since it is so small. So you may have to check it closely like I did. Remember, this problem slowly egressed until engine performance was degraded noticably. Which is why I did a complete tear-down inspection and since I had it apart replaced most of the bearings. I had approx. 5 1/2 gallons in this helicopter.
Took it out and flew and the thing was a different helicopter. It could actually fly and come back upwind that day and didn't sound so weak. I'm back to loving this machine again.
Thought I would post this so if anybody has a similar problem this info may help....I haven't even called horizon due to there lack of interest in most of my previous questions. I work for a corporate flight dept. and I am an aviation mech/pilot. We have 3 Beechjets and when I have a problem, I call the tech support and its amazing how helpful they are, and how they have helped my get our planes back in the air. I'm just glad the horz. tech boys don't work for raytheon or I would never get our Beechjets off the ground. Don't get me wrong, they are helpful if they already know the problem and solution, but if you see something they haven't, then you are just out of luck, until their engineers find it I guess. Maybe and hopefully I have just been the unlucky caller and the rest of you guys have been getting great help. If not, I think Minair will be getting a order for my next big helicopter and not jr.
WELL AT LEAST I'M REALLY LEARINING HOW TO WORK ON THESE THINGS WHICH TO BE HONEST IS HALF THE FUN.
I still like flying better
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