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MATCO Brake Lockup


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Posted (edited)

I have over 3,000 hours in Avid tail-draggers.

Imagine my surprise when landing at my home airport and applying some braking and when I let off the brakes the Avid MK4 swerved to the right, off the runway, and onto the grass.

I had my foot into the left brake to stop the turn, but that just helped the Avid to nose over breaking a carbon blade on my Whirlwind prop and making the left wing tip hit the ground.

I ended up nose and wingtip down in the grass and had to have help getting the Avid back down on the tail wheel.

Damage was: A) broken wooden outboard flaperon hanger. B) bent left axel C) damaged brake rotor attach points

My brakes are MATCO double puck type.

The investigation found that one of the pucks on the right side was stuck. The other one could be easily removed, but the stuck one had to be blown out with air pressure.

That puck was burnished and new O rings were added to the brakes. The puck sliders were cleaned and burnished. It is very critical to keep the sliders cleaned. The newer sliders from MATCO are stainless and don't get the rust that others do.

We used a long pipe to bend the axel back in place. Avid have much smaller diameter axels that Kitfox and Zenith Aircraft.

The axel being bent caused the 3 rotor attach points to rub, but the rotors were still serviceable.

When I took the fabric off the left wing tip to do the repair on the flaperon hangar I found that one of the previous owners had to repair this same area. We just repeated the repair he did.

I had started to put in a claim to AVEMCO, but canceled it when I realized I could repair it at a reasonable cost. Total repairs cost $2,000. AVEMCO has a $1,000 deductible and I'm sure my premiums would be increased.

John M

 

 

Edited by skypics

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Posted

Holy wack-a-mole... are you ok? when did it happen?

Regards

Dimi3

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Posted

Fortunately, it happened before I left for the Idaho backcountry in late June. That would have been a bummer hauling it all the way back to SoCal.

By the way, some of the stuff you have in the MK4 baggage compartment will come up front to meet you in the cockpit. Thankfully nothing heavy, like a hammer, was in there.

Make sure that stuff is secure. 

Also, if you flip upside down make sure you have something soft to drop on when you release your belt and drop on your head.

 

John M

 

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Posted

Fortunately, it happened before I left for the Idaho backcountry in late June. That would have been a bummer hauling it all the way back to SoCal.

By the way, some of the stuff you have in the MK4 baggage compartment will come up front to meet you in the cockpit. Thankfully nothing heavy, like a hammer, was in there.

Make sure that stuff is secure. 

Also, if you flip upside down make sure you have something soft to drop on when you release your belt and drop on your head.

 

John M

 

Hey John, is this your old plane? it seems like it´s going through a major upgrades, wings, fuselage, etc.-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5qSH-ggEdg&t=13s

Regards

Dimi3

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