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Toe-in-out

FinnFlyer

Well Known Member
Section 15 in the manual states: "Assure compliance with the wheel alignment specification presented in Section 10 of this manual".

I don't see any specs in Section 10, other than since March 1993 all alignment drilled was performed at the factory.

Not knowing if my project was from before or after that date, I'd like to verify alignment.

I've looked at the threads on how to correct mis-drilling, but didn't see actual specs.

So what are the specs for the RV-4 and how are they measured? Weight off on on wheels, tail up/down?

Finn
 
Same as RV-3?

No answers :(

Dug out my old RV-3 manual:
With weight off gear legs, fuselage level (fore-aft, side-to-side), clamp a piece of straight angle to rear of both axles (angle 90 degrees to fuselage center line), drill holes in engine mount sockets and gear legs.

That would indicate zero toe-in/out with unloaded gear.

Hopefully that is the same for the RV-4. An old RVator article [2/95] appear to confirm it's same for RV-6 (but allows for 0.05" toe-in as measured at axle ends).

Finn
 
Don't know about best toe in/tow out angles for the 4, but do know the consequences if you just clamp the straight angle to the axles and forget about the 90 deg. to the fuselage center line.
Had a Rocket come in with perfectly parallel wheel tracks but wanted to know why his plane always tended to swing left on the runway. One wheel turned out to be about 3/8" farther back from the datum compared to the other, therefore the parallel wheels were forcing the plane to dog track down the runway. Funny, after I shimmed the spindles to compensate for the offset, the owner started to brag about how he finally 'tamed the beast' in landing mode.
 
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