Blade 400 - Greasing and Lubrication

[dam74]

Hi at the moment I have my Blade400 partially stripped with access to all of the main shaft components. Now I was wondering which parts should I grease, and which should I use a lubricant on?

I'm guessing using the grease on bearings, maybe a lubricant on the shaft/bushings?

Is there a guide on here that somebody could point me to for general care/maintenance of RC helis?

[xygax]

The bearings are sealed for life in nearly all cases except the thrust bearings they can be found in the blade grips (grease these) and in the head are the dampers (o rings in the blade i think) they also need a little grease. A little triflow oil on the tail piych slider where it slides on the shaft and the same on the swash where it slides on hte main shaft. The bearings in the motor also a little oil some motors have a specific lubrication kit to stop the bearings giving up.

Tescos cheep wiles for teh rest of it...

STeve

[dam74]

I've got triflow grease with ptfe which I'm using on the bearings. Out of interest will this damage the plastic casing, mouldings (eg. swashplate, washout guide, rotor head etc) as I did read another thread that said that you should remove oil/grease from the plastic. Some of it's smeared onto the casing at the moment so a bit concerned about it.

Darryl

[Boggy]

no its ok Darryl. dont use too much though as it collects dust and makes a nice grinding paste

good old Mr Sheen polish makes a great lubicant for the belt.

[dam74]

Cheers for that tip about Mr Sheen, silicon content??

Almost completed rebuild of the helicopter. Do you think you can give me a hand with the feathering shaft Boggy? Got the flybar and seesaw done. Just trying to work out these friggen shims I've got eight of them and the diagram says to use two of them on the rotor head side of the rotor grips/mixers. Most of the exploded diagram is fine I think for the helicopter just the complex parts like above the body should of had a more detailed view.

On a side note is that Eflite hardware pack doesn't include long versions of the small screws that hold the two body halves together. They only include the short and the area near the tail boom has 5 long screws. I think I'll send an email off to Eflite to see if they can change that to future revisions of the pack to include two of.

[Boggy]

the last picture in this series shows you the order of the bearings and shims. if you can get two shims in use them but if not keep both sides equal(one or two per side)the photo only shows one which is usually correct.
the step in part#20 goes towards the rubber damper


How to Repair and fix Your Blade 400 Helicopter

[dam74]

Yeah I've been using that page to put my helicopter back together. It's just that I have 8 shims that I dismantled from the feathering shaft area. So that mean from the factory it came with 4 per side.

[Boggy]

ah right fit them (or as many as you can get in without making it over tight)between the stepped washer#20 and the bearing#16. iirc two either side is about right.

until you mentioned those i didnt realise they are missing from that picture. perhaps i will strip mine down and make a new guide picture set

[Grant85]

Darryl,My Blade came with 5 shims on each side as stock but i'm sure four on each side will be fine mate.
Here is a picture of mine,there is the rubber damper,then five shims,then the thrust bearing.Hope that helps.
Cheers Grant.

[dam74]

Yeah cheers Grant but I take it that's not the correct sequence?

Mine is going to be rebuilt like this from main rotor head/yoke to grips:

Rubber O-Ring, Step Washer, Bearing.

Then from grips to blade:

Bearing, Shims, Thrust Bearing, Washer, Hex Bolt


I'm sure the way I disassembled it had from grips to blade:

Bearing, Thrust Bearing, Shims, Washer, Hex Bolt as I'm sure I didn't remove the Thust Bearing Silver Caps and mine was well wedged into the Rotor Grips.

[Grant85]

The picture i have shown is as per stock mate,I didn't take anything out.I slid an old flybar in through the feathering shaft so none of the bits fall out.The order is,main rotor hub with rubber damper,then shims.But now you have got me thinking so i will take mine apart now and double check for you mate,so that i'm 100% sure then.lol
Cheers Grant.

[dam74]

Ok this is my bad. As I'm really getting a bit confused. Just removed all the components out of the other blade grips now.

What I have is a shim/washer with a 5mm diameter hole that is suppose to go I take it between bearing and thrust bearing (inc caps).

The parts which I thought were the shim/washer I think are just washers that go at the very end between the bolt and the thrust bearing. I have two (one per grip) washer that is about 1mm thick and the rest are wafer thin around 0.1-0.2mm about same thickness as the shim/washer that goes between the bearing and thrust bearing.

Update:

Grant/Boggy, or are the wafer thin shims with a 3mm hole suppose to go between the o-ring/step washer and the bearing????

[Grant85]

I'm going to take a picture to help you out mate

[Boggy]

ive just stripped out mine and it has two of the shims per side also a spare head i have is the same . the step in the washer goes towards the rubber damper

sorry its a bit blurred it was done quicly

[dam74]

Yeah I will once I've assembled for future reference. If I'd known there were no detailed rebuild instructions for the helicopter I would of taken photos of the head as I stripped. I took photos as soon as I found out and Boggy advised me to