How much side play is acceptable on the main wheels?

[cook11]

I have the Grove disc brakes along with wheels on my experimental pacer. I am curious to know how much side play when twisting the wheels by hand fore and aft is acceptable? Is there such thing as a acceptable tolerance for twisting movement?

[JPerkins]

I'm sure someone with more airplane experience will give you exactly what its supposed to be but here's my two pennies.
It should be slight, like barely noticeably slight. When tightening the axle nut I like to hand tighten (just holding a deep socket in my hand) while spinning the wheel until I feel solid resistance (cant turn by hand anymore)to preload the bearings. Then I back the nut off a quarter turn. This gives room in the bearing for the grease to get around to properly lubricate everything. Then back off the nut (don't tighten!) just enough to get the cotter pin or whatever the locking device is to engage the nut to keep it from spinning.
Too much play lets the roller bearings "slam" into the face of the race leaving a rough spot. Then every time a roller bearing runs across that rough spot it roughens them, then they in turn roughen up other areas of the race face compounding the problem until it sounds like your driving/taxiing on gravel even though its pavement!.
Too little play, nothing gets lubricated because there's no room for the grease, things get hot, lose temper, soften and deform, gall, same noise as above.
There's a proper preload torque that usually between 25-50 inch pounds on cars anyways, I'm sure someone here knows what it is for these planes. But the hand tighten procedure has done me well for 15+ years of wrenching on cars.

Hope this helps,
Jason P

[Pacer 24C]

General rule for all tapered bearings is ideally - zero play - zero pre-load

[JPerkins]

Sorry, I meant preload then back off quarter turn.

[Gilbert Pierce]

I agree with 24C. Zero Play and Zero Preload.

[rocket 204]

i agree with Gilbert and 24C

[JPerkins]

Apparently I'm not good at explaining something via computer. When torque the axle nut then back it off approx. A 1/4 turn you wind up with zero play/preloaded. You can actually feel the preload come off the bearings just before the 1/4 turn mark.
How do you gents set your bearings when servicing them?

[cook11]

[cook11]

[cook11]

This is how much movement I have side to side on my main wheels.