It's been another week, and it's still almost done. Why isn't it completely done? Because the replacement nose wheel arrived and turned out to be the wrong one. It's too small.
I don't have all of the details. As near as I can tell, the most likely reason is that the illustrated parts catalog for my plane, or IPC for short, has two different wheel assemblies listed on the same page. This is because the IPC covers more than just my airplane. I use the word "assembly" because the wheel is in two halves, and there are other parts like the bolts that hold those halves together, the bearings, etc. I suspect that whoever Preston was talking to thought he meant the smaller of the two and that's the part numbers Preston was told to obtain.
To add to my confusion, my POH notes that there are two different tire sizes that my plane can have. My plane has the larger size, but the original equipment list says it came with the smaller size. The most likely explanation I can think of for that is that it did originally have the smaller tires, but that Beechcraft installed the larger tires at the same time they upgraded the engine to the O-360. With that larger engine came a larger propeller and the larger tires provide more ground clearance for the prop.
Thing is, as far as I can tell, both size of tire used the same wheel. It is only the outer diameter of the tire that is different: 15 inches vs. 17.5 inches. Both mount on a wheel six inches in diameter. The smaller wheel in the IPC is five inches in diameter and I'm assuming that's the one that was sent to the shop.
I went out to the shop this past Saturday and they had put the new tube and tire on the old wheel, and mounted the wheel on the nose gear so they could at least have it on the landing gear and move it around. When I arrived, the mechanic was just about done connecting everything. All that was left was to re-install the front seats and put the cowl back on. He was hoping to have it running later that afternoon. I haven't heard yet whether or not he did, but I may call tomorrow and find out. They had also received the new clear cover for the landing light and installed it, replacing the old one which was cloudy and yellow. The cover for the taxi light on the right wing wasn't replaced, but it's not as critical, and isn't in as poor a condition as this one was.
In the mean time, Preston's trying to figure out what's going on and get a wheel of the right size. Hopefully one can be found and delivered quickly. It would be really nice if I could have my plane back this week, though the weather has been mostly cloudy with some rain. Though there have been a couple of periods the last couple of days where it was nice enough to fly around the pattern, which is what I'll be doing on the first flight just in case something goes sideways and I need to land.
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