Nose tire pressure and shimmy.

You all talk about the bolts but not the bushings that are more wearing than the steel bolt...

I am of the opinion that if you are using the steering linkage and nutcracker to dampen shimmy, you will be constantly wearing out the nutcracker bolts and steering link bearing. See if you can find the cause of the shimmy: tire out of round, tire out of balance, loose bearings, others can probably offer other reasons.

Hey everyone,
I am fighting a nose wheel shimmy right now.  A few years ago I replaced the nutcracker bolts and all has been good until recently.  I maintain 17psi but, recently the shimmy has been fairly violent.  I went through the steering components and I have two spots with play in them.  A little bit in the yoke but, it seems very minimal.  The second area is where the two steering collars meet.  My assumption is there should be no play at those two collars but, I wanted to confirm that before tightening.  Anyone know?  Next step was to take the tire off and send it in for dynamic balancing.

Yeah, Cessna 150's were/are notorious for nose wheel shimmy. Probably caused by new pilots landing too fast, like I was prone to do 43 years ago. . .and still do occasionally! Flew today after letting air out of the nose tire to 20lbs. No shimmy. Maybe winds helped slow my ground speed; variable at 8 knots.

Happened to me once. I didn't change the tire pressure, did anything different during my landing or anything. Had 20+ landings prior to that shimmy and then, one night, there was that shimmy. My mechanic looked everything over and found nothing. After that shimmy landing, I did another, I don't know, 20+ landings with no shimmy.

Funnily enough, when I rent a Cessna 150 occasionally, it pretty much get a shimmy every single landing unless I make it a soft field landing and keep the elevators up until I almost get to a stop.

Thanks for that info, Michael. My coupe goes in for its annual next month will make sure to check those AN bolts on the nutcracker assembly! I too try to find that "sweet spot" with the elevator if the shimmy happens.