I've been fighting a flu type bug for the last several days but finally rebounded tonight so I was able to finish up the nose wheel. This started with the packing of the wheel bearings with grease as they come dry. I'm using a fully synthetic grease from Mobile1 that has a wide temperature range and is meant for heavy duty use. Modern synthetics are easily as capable as the Aeroshell recommended by Van's and more readily available. I then balanced the wheel using my Marc Barnes wheel balancer which does a good job. I am also using Matco's modified axle that addresses Van's poor design for the nosewheel. The problem is Van's design used the fork to preload some bushings against the bearing seals to ensure that the bearings did not rotate with the wheel. The problem is the AL fork was too flexible and would not hold the preload allowing the bearing to spin in the wheel and eventually eating up the fork and wheel. Matco's design moved the preload to the axle and does not rely on the fork eliminating this problem. It then locks the axle in place with a bolt through the fork into the axle. So i have the wheel mounted and the nose gear is complete with the exception of the stop being bolted on at the head of the elastomeric donuts. This requires some significant weight on the nosewheel and I'll do that when it's sitting on its own gear.
Nose wheel mounted
You can see the Matco locking bolt right next to the axle
