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Taildragger Wheel Alignment

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GeeBee3

Member
Joined
Mar 20, 2016
Messages
18
Location
Canada
This summer I gave in to my wish to own a red biplane, and purchased a Marquart Charger. After flying it home (1700 miles and 12 airports later, most of them paved) I discovered excessive tire wear. The right tire has scrubbed through the tread on the inside, and the left tire is wearing excessively on the outside. The airplane is 'squirrelly' on landing. To be fair, I am not a skilled taildragger pilot, but the handling does not seem to be as easy as I remember on my check rides in a Citabria. At my home strip I land on grass and the problem is not as bad, but landing on pavement is a nervous experience.
I have measured the alignment of the main wheels by clamping straight bars to the flange of the disk brakes and measuring the distance between the bars fore and aft. When I measure in the 3-point attitude I have approximately 2 degrees of toe-in on each wheel. When I measure in the level attitude, the toe-in drops to approximately 1 degree.
The drawings for the Marquart Charger say to align the wheels by sighting through the hollow axle and align with the axle on the opposite side prior to welding and then to make the final weld. As far as I can tell, this condition is met; the axles seem to align reasonably well with each other, but the measurement off of the disk brakes indicate a significant amount of toe-in. I think I trust the measurement off the disk brakes more, based on the method I am using. Unfortunately, the design of the Marquart is such that there is no adjustment for the gear alignment after the final welds are made. Fixing this will require that the gear be cut and rewelded.
Question 1) Are my problems of tire wear and squirrelly handling due to the toe-in alignment of the main gear, or is there another possible cause?
Question 2) If I cut and reweld the gear, what alignment numbers should I use? The Marquart drawings do not provide this information.
Thanks in advance :)
 
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