ianboag

J200. Nosewheel. I get a bit nervous about the full-rudder-burst-of-power thing when I'm trying to turn to avoid an obstacle (like a fence in front of me) or follow a taxiway or whatever. If the turn doesn't happen then the fact that I applied a burst of power can make things worse ... It's quite livable-with, but differential brakes like the rest of the world would be sort of nice if it's not too hard to do. IB

One gets a bit embarrassed at having to get out and swing the tail occasionally because of the wide turning circle. Has anyone out there made a split (ie independent) brake setup?

T87 I'm always happy to take advice from people who have already solved the problem. At 62 years old and living a long way from a beach (and the NZ North Is south-west beaches are pretty crappy anyway) ....... it's a bit of a chore for me to find a surf ski to look at :-) So how are they attached anyway? ModPi What's the superglue for? IB

Thanks Ross. I haven't seen the fasteners that Jab now use (threaded self-tapping inserts as in the previous pix) in the Spruce catalogue or anywhere else. I think I'll buy the Rivnut tool - I'm not a mechanic. My experience has been that I can usually manage things OK with the right tool but I make a mess with shortcuts. I've seen how one can lash one a Rivnut setter with a bolt and a washer but I dunno ..... I decided about shortcuts after I had tried to crimp wires - my hangar mate strips wires with a knife, crimps them with pliers and makes a neat job. I have to use a wire stripper and a reasonable crimp tool. IB

Thanks for all the suggestions. It's a bit of an indictment on Jabiru after-sales that so many of us have encountered this problem and bunbled our way through it. Especially as they have come up with a solution that they are using on new planes. Personally I think I'll be going for the Nutsert solution. I might even just glue them in without to clinching. IB

On the other hand - at $NZ10 each (give or take a bit) Dzus fasteners are not quite there for this application. I need 50-odd to replace the PKs. $500 - choke. Aside from the price I think they would be overkill - the PK's do a reasonable job (I haven't had any fall out) and I'm just looking to tidy things up a bit.

I'm a bit new to all this fastener stuff but there's a helpful supplier here (in Auckland) who is answering my questions so he might sell me $25 worth of them. Good ole Internet. Nutserts are a Rivnut. I think they would work fine and the 25c unit cost is a big plus - I'm slowed down a bit by the apparent need for a $125 setting tool that I would probably never use again. I may of course be able to borrow one. Working on it .... I have to say that Rivnuts (Nutserts) look to me as if they would be just as good as captive nuts but a whole lot cheaper to buy and easier to install. They must be OK for some aircraft things because Spruce sell them. IB

They are what Jab supply in the kit now. I borrowed these from a local building a J230.

Thanks Brent. That's what I was referring to as a "captive nut" - not quite what I wanted here. The rivet/countersink drama is a bit more than what I had in mind. Have a look at a new Jab and you'll see the rather neat inserts I am looking at. Imagine if all those PK's that hold covers on were replaced with M4 screws going into metal (aluminium) threads. The inserts holding the threads are self-tapping but I'm told the way they get mounted is by drilling a suitable hole and epoxying them in. (If there is such a verb as "to epoxy" .....) Here are a couple of pix ... Cheers IB

My J200 - being a few years old - has the fairings and covers and things held together with PK screws. Whenever I take off a cover for maintenance or inspection or whatever I end up putting bigger screws into some of the holes because they have grown a little on me. This problem can't be unique to me as Jabiru now uses some kind of self-tapping threaded inserts instead of PK screws. I'm told they cost about $4 each which seems a tad steep. Does anyone know what they are called in the non-aviation world and/or where they can be obtained? Alternatively can anyone comment on the suitability of Rivnuts (or any other sort of fastener) for this job? Captive nuts would probably work but seem a bit over the top. IB

Dunno about the trim tabs, but my new (and accepted by Jab) bracket seems to have fixed all that for me. Trim lever now sits where one would expect it to and all that. IB

I'm not trying to teach my granny to suck eggs, but here's how I figured out the position for the rear hole in the bracket. I disconnected the trim from the elevator, moved the lever to a central position and clamped the elevator in "level flight" position. I had figured that out earlier by putting the lever in the known level flight position and seeing where the elevator ended up. This is what it all looked like ... required bracket shape is pretty obvious. You can see why I thought about shortening the spring rod as an alternative too.

In my first effort, I reconnected the elevator rod to the top hole rather than the bottom. Whoops. It flew OK but there was no need for that. I have rectified that mistake. Finally - I trimmed the bracket down a bit - did it with a jigsaw in situ - if I'd been a better workman I'd have taken it off, radiused it all nicely, buffed it up and painted it white ...... maybe one day. It is made of aluminium of the same thickness as the plate it replaced (about 3 mm). I don't know about the grade but it is not a highly stressed part. I looked up the build instructions for the J200 - my suspicion about the trim lever pivot position was wrong - the instructions clearly say it goes in the back hole and the trim lever travel is not symmetric (goes forward about twice as far as it goes back). FWIW - on the ground - the "horizontal flight" position on the elevator is with the counterweight about 3 mm above the elevator top surface. I was talking about all this to the agent and he confirmed that - it's why he moved the cable clip at the rear because the trim mechanism "as built" did not get there.

For insuring a plane it is worth looking at a high excess ie something like $10,000. This reduced the insurance on my J200 by $NZ1000. The logic is that the "normal" excess is $1000 or so and if there's a claim the no claims bonus goes out the window which will add $500+ to the premium. So you take your own risk on knocks and dings but insure for major damage. Horses for courses I suppose IB

Here's the pix. All seems to work OK now. Ian Boag The mod - I put two holes in the connector because I was not sure how much "shortening" would be needed. This is "level flight" configuration - bellcrank more or less vertical and trim lever in the middle. Springs on the rod both on 3rd hole. Level flight setup pre-mod. Note that the clip holding the trim cable has been shifted - before that was done I imagine there would not have been enough forward trim at all. Trim lever and bellcrank both well forward. Spring on the rod was pushed up hard with split pin and extra washers. Trim lever as it was when set up for level flight pre-mod. The plane flew OK .... I wonder if this was a build error and the trim lever should have been on the (left in the pic) front bolt rather than the (right in the pic) back one. I think that might have sorted it out the "cable length" issue as well. Note that the pivot bolt is actually BEHIND the trim neutral position on the placard. When vertical it is just behind the M in "TRIM"

Today I made a bracket which connects the end of the trim rod to the elevator horn about 15mm further back that it was before. Then I went for a flight. The trim lever makes sense now - pulled back for takeoff - in the middle for normal flight - still enough back trim on landing. :) The springs are set on the third hole (of five) both ways. Before I did this the rear spring was on the innermost hole and had five washers under it to scrunch it up some more. Happy to post a photo if anyone is interested. IB

Stronger spring. There's a good idea. Now if someone had told me such a thing was available I'd probably have bought one .... The fishplate idea is not particularly radical - I'm just changing (by not a lot) the relationship between the trim lever position and the trim mechanism. I expect that this will mean I now use the back half of the trim lever travel. I'll post a pic when it's done. IB

I have the Trio EZ-Pilot. It works. One of the features I really like is that if you accidentally fly into the inside of a milk bottle (can happen inadvertently here on a claggy day) there's a button to push for a 180 degree rate 1 turn. Of course, even just selecting the AP without this will at least activate the wing levelling function. IB

The situation I am describing is with the split pin all the way in. I added five washers underneath it to further compress the spring (equivalent to the new holes suggested) but that didn't make any real difference. IB

Great forum. All these things about the J2xx that I thought were just me - hard starting - running out of forward trim - uneven tank drain. My J200 is an old one and came without the header tank mod. If I tried to run on just one tank I always got the dreaded choke-cough-splutter-sweat. Now I've done the HT mod - tanks still drain at different rates. If it looks too extreme I turn the tap off on the lower tank for a while. So long at I can see fuel in the header tank vent pipe (runs up next to me) I know there are no problems. IB

Interesting. Like I said, I fly two-up with the lever at 95% forward. Takeoff is centralised. The back half of the trim lever travel is never used. I'm pretty nervous about any weight at all in the back given that I seem to be out of forward trim. Perhaps leaning on the stick all the time is OK - I just haven't done it. Being unable to trim out stick forces would be a bit of a novelty for me. I have figured that the way to deal with the problem is to effectively shorten the trim cable. Doing anything to the cable is way too hard though. One approach would be to cut about 2-3 cm off the back end of the spring-loaded rod. This would mean that the trim lever would be about in the middle for level flight instead of 95% forward. The drawback is that one would have to remove the rod and drill/tap a new hole in the end. An easier way is to take off the fishplate which connects the trim cable to the elevator horn and replace the fishplate with a triangular piece of ally so that the ball joint connects to the elevator horn about 2-3 cm BEHIND the current position. So "trim lever in the middle" with the new configuration will be the same as "trim lever 95% forward" in the current configuration. I will have a heap more forward trim ..... Takeoff will be pulled back some, cruise will be more or less in the middle etc etc. If there's extra weight in the back then I should have enough trim to deal with it. Any/all comments gratefully received. I can send a photo to anyone who is interested. IB

I have no issues with EGTs or CHTs or oil temp/press when I do my reduced power stooging through the sky. All numbers look fine. I do have a funny one on the oil pressure front though. When the oil and engine are cold the pressure is relatively low (35-odd psi) and it increases (50-odd psi) as the engine warms up after takeoff. Warming the oil before takeoff doesn't seem to happen. I use a CHT of 250+ as my indication of a warmed up engine. I forget who suggested that. I did the oil pump mod ages ago and I have one of the big new Aero Classics oil coolers - same as on the 230's (the Positech one is essentially the same). Provided I tape the cooler off 100% the oil temperature is fine .... Sure NZ is colder than Victoria, but I would expect oil temp to track OAT so the difference should not be more than about 10 deg C. Go figure. IB

I fly my J200 at 100 kts - about 2500-2600 rpm - because it's quieter than 120 kts and I get to enjoy more time flying. I have a fuel flow meter and at 100 kts it uses a tad under 15 lph. 120 kts is about 25. Takeoff is 35. I would expect a 230 to be not very different. I get a bit of tsk-tsk and wonder if I'm glazing the bores or whatever. The other day i was flying with a mate who used to fly with me in my old C172A which would rumble along in the low 90s burning 35 lph. I throttled back to low 90's - the plane went a bit mushy but the view was nice and it was real quiet - I don't recall the rpm - fuel burn was just over 10 lph. Suck that up you GA tintops Ian Boag

I have a (not built by me) J200. Trim range is from centre (at takeoff) to 95% forward (cruise). That's a J200 with nothing in the back. I have not been able to understand how a J400/430 could possibly work with any sort of weight in the back given that I am essentially at full forward trim. I have inspected the trim spring and find that a bracket was shifted by about 3 cm to increase the tension. I noticed that with the trim at full forward on the ground the elevator is slightly down as one would expect with spring-driven trim. I wondered about hacking off the trim tabs. Looks like I might do that now ... Ian Boag

We're all set for a bit of confusion here as I see the group already has Ian Borg and I'm Ian Boag. I'm a 62-year old Kiwi flying a Jabiru J200 (ZK-CPA) out of Feilding airfield. I've had it for a couple of years - before that I was a GA man with a 172, then I had a Robin DR400. The Robin was a lovely machine but the cost of keeping a certified aircraft in the air finally drove me off to the microlight world. Plus the whole thing of paying hundreds of dollars for a GA medical so I could fly 50-60 hours a year finally got to me. I only fly on nice days anyway. I've become used to the "what? microlight?" response. One explains that it's made of fibreglass rather than basket weave and the engine (even if it is Australian) is too big for a chainsaw. Finally one adds that it will run away and hide from most 172's while it burns half the gas and is wider door-door. A picture clinches things. I was pleased to find this site and discover that the list of people who have trouble cold-starting Jabirus in the winter was quite long even before I came along. It was good to see that my solutions (external jumper lug, squirt of ether, second battery) had already been thought of. Hot water on the carb was a new idea though. Cheers IB