General Bearing maintenance

[pvolcko]

I lube the bearings that I can get at every 5-10 flights. This includes top and bottom motor bearings, shaft bearings, swash bearing, small radials all over the head and tail assembly, tension pulleys, etc.

On a torque tube heli, though, there are a few that you can only get at by taking the tail apart, pulling the TT out of the boom, taking the front block out of the heli frame, etc. How often do people actually do this in practice? It's all fine and good to say it should be done every 5-10 flights, but who actually does that? I can't imagine many.

Same goes for thrust bearings in tail and main rotor holders.

What do you actually do vs recommended for these hard to reach bearings?

 

[coolgabsi]

thrust bearings get packed with lube once and not serviced until needed after a crash or just a rebuild


The bearings inside the torque tube.. almost being wether proof.. dont need oiling once it is done during installation.. and then when done after a crash or a rebuild .

Its good to oil motor bearings and main bearing blocks and such.. but also remember, too much oil will attract dust and actually cause a bearing grittiness as these machines fly outdoors, attracting dust is not difficult. So use very sparingly..

I would do it every 10 flights or so on the frame. your Scorpion motor needs it more often though. But the rest of the heli .. every tewn flights or so .. make sure to clean the access off after oiling, and after the first flight when you will see streaks of oil all over.

Hard to reach bearings.. dont bother. If your shaft is true through them , and then the bearings is hard to reach regardless, its hard to reach for anything.. and most bearings are sealed so hard to reach ones are double protected ..

 

[murankar]

I have had my kit since November. I just did a complete tear down and rebuild. I did it in two sessions, first the tail then the main frames. The only thing I did on the head was the blade grips. I used Tony's method of cleaning. Worked like a charm.

 

[pvolcko]

What's Tony's blade grip cleaning method?

 

[Tony]

I'm kinda wondering that myself lmao. Unless you mean putting all of the bolts and the feathering shaft in alcohol to remove the oil?

 

[murankar]

Actually I was referring to the bearing cleaning. Using break cleaner left the bearings running clean and free. Only thing was that I used just a little more oil when I was done cleaning. My bearings are still running smooth and free. My swash bearing was running stiff and after cleaning that thing spun for a good 8-10 seconds.

 

[Tony]

How To Clean Bearings The Easy Way - YouTube

 

[pvolcko]

Yeah, I tried the brake cleaner method on the middle plate bearing block of my 550X after my nose-in takeoff mishap. Didn't help in that case.

I'm not sure I'd even try this on a swash bearing. On the ones I've seen there's usually some kind of nylon or delrin or other material in there capturing the swivel ball. Wouldn't the brake cleaner eat away at that?

And Matthias, how many flights do you think you put on it before the complete teardown/cleaning/rebuild?

 

[Tony]

I cleaned the swash bearing on the 600 and it was fine. Not saying it won't hurt other kinds of bearings, but it worked for me and has for many years of doing it.

 

[murankar]

I have lost count on the flights. I think I was around 25 to 30 packs. I do regular oiling once a month to the bearings that can be reached with out to much tearing down. This was my first complete tear down and I plan on keeping about a 6 month schedule. This will also depend on how many flights I get in also.