Aeroscout front wheel repair - Seeking comments and suggestions

[Flyboy666]

The metal base of the front of my Aeroscout has come loose for the second time, due to some rough landings. The front of the metal wheelbase seems to bear the brunt of the force when this happens.

See the attached photo. You can see a gap in the front of the base. That is the "steady state" position of the base now. That is, if you push the front of the base down, it just pops back up and resumes the gapped position. No other cracks or damage to the fuselage around the base, or anywhere else.

It flies and lands fine this way. But I don't want it get worse, and then require a major repair. I would like to seal things up and prevent further movement or gaps, as I chalk up more landings (some of them inevitably not perfect).

When this issue first occurred, I put a bead of E6000 around the base to seal it against the fuselage. But after a few rough landings, the bead broke and the base came loose again. Same for 5-minute epoxy that I tried next. The sides and back of the base held, but the front bead separated from the fuselage.

Keep in mind that the picture you are seeing is after I removed the dried glue, in preparation for my new approach to the problem, which I will describe below.

I want to keep this repair simple. I'm not willing to take the landing gear out, insert screws, do a lot of fabrication, etc. like I have seen on other videos. I just want to plug the gap, tighten the base against the fuselage, and prevent further loosening, as much as possible.

So here is what I am thinking, and I would like your comments and remarks. Bear in mind that there are always more than one way to approach these repairs, but I like to keep things simple and functional:

1) I plan to shoot some E6000 (or maybe something else, like Foamtac, which has some give to it) into the front gap, enough so that it will fill the gap. That will hopefully prevent any more up-and-down movement of the base. Basically, the dried glue will shim the front of the base into its current "steady state" position.

2) Then I will simply put a bead of some glue around the entire base, which will hopefully glue the base to the fuselage. Not sure what I will use: E6000, 5-minute epoxy, maybe Foamtac? (But I believe the latter is only for foam-to-foam repairs, not metal-to-foam.) Open to your suggestions.

3) Then I will cover the bead after it dries with some Gorilla Tape, just to seal the seam from the elements in case I bang into anything like grass, etc. with the front wheel. So it will protect the seam a bit.

What do you think? Does this make sense? Anything I am obviously missing?

Thanks

 

[WickedFog]

I am going to assume the foam under the rear of that base has actually taken the most damage. You probably can't see it, but all of the foam bb's under there have probably been crushed flat, and you re-seating the plate against that surface is causing the front to lift. So I would apply the E6000 under the rear of the plate to lift that surface back up. Glue a wood shim back there, like shape some popsicle sticks into a wedge, and glue them under there.

You can kinda see this by the edges of the pocket that plate sits in. They are curved over, as if the foam has been crushed under that plate.

 

[Tunedfrog]

.

 

[Flyboy666]

I am going to assume the foam under the rear of that base has actually taken the most damage. You probably can't see it, but all of the foam bb's under there have probably been crushed flat, and you re-seating the plate against that surface is causing the front to lift. So I would apply the E6000 under the rear of the plate to lift that surface back up. Glue a wood shim back there, like shape some popsicle sticks into a wedge, and glue them under there.

You can kinda see this by the edges of the pocket that plate sits in. They are curved over, as if the foam has been crushed under that plate.
View attachment 201124
View attachment 201125

Thanks, good info, and your explanation makes perfect sense as to what has happened. My rear and sides of the plate don't look quite like your pictures, because the glue is holding pretty well at the sides and rear, so the plate has not separated from the foam. (See my attached photos of the side and back of the plate.) However, to your point, there is a slight "concavity" in the foam right behind the rear of the plate, so it was probably pushed down by the plate during a hard landing. But nothing serious. (BTW, not sure what is meant by "foam bb's.")

I'm hesitant to remove any of the glue around the sides and back of the plate at this point, because it tends to pull off foam as well when you do so. I think I just want to shim the front as it is, which should hopefully stabilize the metal plate somewhat as far as fore-aft movement.

However, instead of putting E6000 in that front gap to create the shim as I originally suggested, I am going to take your idea and use an actual piece of wood, which should act as a stronger and non-compressible shim. See the attached photo with a sample shim to illustrate what I mean. (The sample shim is not fully pushed in, and a bit short, but I will make a longer one that fully fits in.)

Let me know what you think. Again, just going for function, stabilization, and "good enough."

Thanks again

 

[WickedFog]

Thanks, good info. My rear and sides of the plate don't look quite like your pictures, because the glue is holding pretty well at the sides and rear, so the plate has not separated from the foam. (See my attached photos of the side and back.) However, to your point, there is a slight "concavity" in the foam right behind the rear of the plate, so it was probably pushed down by the plate during a hard landing. But nothing serious. (BTW, not sure what is meant by "foam bb's.")

I'm hesitant to remove any of the glue around the sides and back at this point, because it tends to pull off foam as well. I think I just want to shim the front as it is, which should hopefully stabilize the metal plate somewhat as far as fore-aft movement.

However, instead of putting E6000 in to create the shim as I originally suggested, I am going to take your idea and use an actual piece of wood, which should act as a stronger and non-compressible shim. See the attached photo with a sample shim to illustrate what I mean. (The sample shim is not fully pushed in, and a bit short, but I will make a longer one.)

Let me know what you think. Again, just going for function, stabilization, and "good enough."

Thanks again

View attachment 201162

View attachment 201163

View attachment 201164

View attachment 201165

Lol, by foam bb's, I mean the little balls that type of foam is comprised of. Have you ever smashed foam like that? All the little balls the foam consists of flatten like pancakes, and they stay that way.

I don't see anything wrong with shimming the front. At some point the foam under that plate in the back should become harder to compress, so maybe it won't be able to lean back any further. But if it continues to give you problems, I would buy a foam wire cutter and cut a pocket out of that area and glue some stiffer foam there and reform it. I'd probably even glue a thin sheet of basswood in there too under the chunk I cut out and replaced. Then I'd run a couple screws up through those holes into the basswood.

 

[Flyboy666]

Good idea. Thanks again.

 

[Flyboy666]

Following up, here is step 1 of the repair. I found a piece of wood with a slight wedge to it, and cut a shim out of it. I've put the shim underneath the front of the plate, and tacked it in using Elmer's Xtreme white glue. (The shim only goes in about 1/16" inch or so, because then it hits one of the three black plastic tubes that hold the plate on.) There's no front-back movement of the plate when I press down on the front of it, so it has resolved that issue.

The second step will be to build a bead around the plate, to form a seam between the plate and the fuselage.

In the past two instances, I used E6000 and JB Weld 5-minute epoxy for this. The problem I had with both of them is that they don't really form a tight bond with the EPO fuselage. Any stress lifts the side of the seam off.

I want something that will really bond the edge of the plate with the fuselage, to form a tight seal and seam between the plate and the fuselage. Any suggestions? (Foam-Tec, Gorilla Glue, something else?) I am wondering if Goop would be a good thing to use, because it is thicker.

Thanks

 

[WickedFog]

Following up, here is step 1 of the repair. I found a piece of wood with a slight wedge to it, and cut a shim out of it. I've put the shim underneath the front of the plate, and tacked it in using Elmer's Xtreme white glue. (The shim only goes in about 1/16" inch or so, because then it hits one of the three black plastic tubes that hold the plate on.) There's no front-back movement of the plate when I press down on the front of it, so it has resolved that issue.

The second step will be to build a bead around the plate, to form a seam between the plate and the fuselage.

In the past two instances, I used E6000 and JB Weld 5-minute epoxy for this. The problem I had with both of them is that they don't really form a tight bond with the EPO fuselage. Any stress lifts the side of the seam off.

I want something that will really bond the edge of the plate with the fuselage, to form a tight seal and seam between the plate and the fuselage. Any suggestions? (Foam-Tec, Gorilla Glue, something else?) I am wondering if Goop would be a good thing to use, because it is thicker.

Thanks

View attachment 201185

I would just run a couple laps of electrical tape around it while stretching it a bit so it is tight

 

[Flyboy666]

Thanks. Interesting answer, as I was also thinking about taping it with something, but after putting a bead of some type of adhesive on first.

Will the tape alone provide any structural rigidity and hold the metal to the fuselage, or will it just provide a seal from the elements? I would like to get a bead of something between the metal plate and the foam, for some added strength.

My problem is that I haven't found anything yet that bonds to both metal and foam.

 

[WickedFog]

Thanks. Interesting answer, as I was also thinking about taping it with something, but after putting a bead of some type of adhesive on first.

Will the tape alone provide any structural rigidity and hold the metal to the fuselage, or will it just provide a seal from the elements? I would like to get a bead of something between the metal plate and the foam, for some added strength.

My problem is that I haven't found anything yet that bonds to both metal and foam.

We took one of those big foam gliders you buy at gas stations by the counter. We added about 2lbs of weight to it so we could throw it long distances. It broke numerous times. We tried lots of different glues. Nothing would work as good as just covering it with electrical and duct tape.

If you glue that, and it takes another hit, it's just going to rip up any foam the glue is stuck to. Wrapping tape all the way around the fuselage will act as a clamp. It would either have to tear the tape or break the entire fuselage off for it to come loose again. One strip of duct tape around it, followed by a couple wraps of electrical tape should do the trick. The duct tape will keep it from stretching the electrical tape. And taught electrical tape will act as a banding type clamp.

Or, you have those two holes in that plate. Can you run screws all the way through the fuselage and put a washer under the head of the screw to keep it from pulling through the foam?

At some point you gotta worry about weight too though

 

[Flyboy666]

Thanks again. Good point about the glue continuing to rip off foam. Now I understand better. I was going to put tape around the metal base, not around the fuselage. But it seems you are saying to wrap the tape around the fuselage.

But I'm a bit confused as to exactly how to do it.

See the two attached photos, with two rubber bands to simulate where I think you are telling me to put the tape. The problem, as you can see, it that they will block the battery bay. So I can't circle the fuselage completely. Are you saying to just wrap the tape around until I hit the edge of the fuselage, to keep the battery bay clear? Or am I completely misunderstanding?

Also, I'm not quite clear what you mean by "the duct tape will keep it from stretching the electrical tape." Why the electrical tape over the duct tape?

If you have a photo of how to do it, that might help.

Thanks again.

 

[WickedFog]

Oh, yeah, that could be a problem.

So is that front wheel attached to that servo arm I see in there? So when that wheel gets shoved back, is the whole servo arm assembly moving?

 

[Flyboy666]

Oh, yeah, that could be a problem.

So is that front wheel attached to that servo arm I see in there? So when that wheel gets shoved back, is the whole servo arm assembly moving?

Yes, if I understand you correctly. (Being new to the hobby, I am not always clear on the all the nomenclature.) On this plane, both the rudder and front wheel are operated by the same servo. So, both are connected to the same servo.

As the manual states:
"Rudder Right and Left
• Push the rudder stick right to yaw the aircraft nose to the right.
• Push the rudder stick left to yaw the aircraft nose to the left.
The rudder stick is also used to steer the aircraft left and right while taxiing on
the ground."

So yes, I would think that if the entire wheel assembly gets pushed back, the servo assembly might also move ... but very slightly. I checked all the controls, and everything is in order. And it seems to fly fine. So I am not too concerned about the servo arm assembly at this point.

Photo attached if that helps.

Any further ideas on how to lock the metal plate to the fuselage? If no other ideas (besides drilling holes, screws, etc., which I am not ready to do), I might go back to the bead-of-glue-around-the-plate idea, although as you point out, it's definitely not optimal. And hopefully I will minimize any hard landings.

Open to any further suggestions. Thanks

 

[WickedFog]

Well, I was just thinking if that servo arm under that battery strap is connected to that front wheel, there may be a way to secure that to that wood plate under the battery. Or it may have originally been secured to it and has broken loose under there. Can you get to that area and see what's going on from the inside?

 

[Flyboy666]

It's not easy to get to. But I was able to look around and poke around, and everything is tight, nothing is broken that I can tell. It was also flying fine.

Nothing internally was ever loose; it was just that the plate had moved because of the impact of hitting the ground. As you noted, it had moved back and up, slightly compressing the fuselage. But there was no slop.

In hindsight, it might have been better to shim the back of the plate, not the front, to rock it forward into OEM position. But the plate was tight against the fuselage, no movement fore and aft, and not loose, so I didn't want to mess with it and have to pry up the rear of the plate, etc., risking making things worse.

At this point, I am going to leave well enough alone. I'll leave the shim in the front, and just seal the edges of the plate against the fuselage, for as long as the repair holds up. As the saying goes, "The perfect is the enemy of the good." Plus, hopefully as my landings get smoother, the front wheel won't be taking as much abuse.

Thanks for all your assistance and insight on this.

 

[WickedFog]

If nothing else, if it starts acting up, I'd maybe try some duct tape wrapped around as much of it as I could, and pull it tight so it helps hold that plate down. They make it in white too