Tailwheel-How Its Made

I have had great enjoyment working out a process to produce these yokes and king pin assemblies in a consistent and true form.  (See picture below.) After much trial and error, we have built a streamlined setup that has been static tested to beyond the strength of the spring with no cracks, bending or breakage.

Locking pins and roller bushings.Locking pins and bushings. (Above.) This is another time consuming job if you’re making just one or two parts. These parts are always chromated, baked and kept on hand.

Bronze king pin bushings.Bronze king pin bushings. (Above.) A very thin, but very important piece to keep proper tension to the tail wheel king pin. Again, hard to make if you’re setting up for just one bushing. With our CNC controlled production, even 5-10 years from now these parts will go right in if ever needed. Nothing that would have to ever be fixed in the back country, but nice to know that US Postal Service can deliver in a letter the few parts you might ever have to replace.

This is what the cam body looks like before welding. We do a few things differently today, after working through some fixture process steps. This gives a good idea on the quality control of the parts we have. The cam top is made right into the part. NO welding of it for a true-to-base alignment. Again, 4130 N used throughout these parts.

Main cam bodies with bearings and bushing in place. (Above.) These have all been chromated/baked and ready for assembly.

Welding the hardest part, the deep pockets in the cam body base. Requires good fixtures, steady hands, and patience to let the fill rod build, meld and keep from burning through.

Above is a close up the welds on the yoke, side plates of yoke, and deep pockets of the main cam body.

All the main parts together; please note the wear parts: locking pin, bushing, bearing and perhaps the locking pin spring. Replacement package for all would cost less than $29. I have had many request for various parts on a separate basis, though this sounds simple, it really is not. These parts are made to always fit my tail wheel and to my tolerance standards. So if one was to make a cam body and was off just .01 of an inch from the distance required for my king pin, it would throw everything else off. This would even include the locking pin, if the locking pin body had a different dimension of slot cut into it. 

Ready for assembly. It’s always great when things come together nicely.