installed tailwheel spring, including measuring running torque of a new fiber lock nut at about 20 "lbs. Torque range for a AN4 is 50-70 "lbs so I torqued it to to 80 "lbs to account for nut torque, which means teh fastener is actually torqued to about 60 "lbs, which is smack in the middle of the specified range. This is standard industry procedure and Vans covers it in their build manual as well, but the question comes up on VAF quite a bit, so I'm specifically mentioning it here in case that might help out somebody reading this in the future.

The print calls for just a bolt, washer and castle nut thru the wheel, no spacers in this design. The wheel came with the bearings already pressed in and the felt like they were already lubricated, but they really don't spin very freely, maybe 1/2 to 3/4 of a revolution even before it's in the fork. Plus, when I was playing with this some beige flecks that looked like dried varnish came out of one of them, so I popped one out if the wheel and discovered that they are super cheap sealed chinese ball bearings. No way to pack them.

Likewise, there is a grease zerk in the wheel, but it doesn't have a spring check ball, just a hole all the way through that vents to the cavernous open center of the wheel. A guy would have to pump probably 1/2 a cartridge of grease into that thing to get grease anywhere near the back side of the bearings, and they're essentially sealed anyway. what the heck?

I verified with several people who have used this setup that teh bearings are prefabricated and sealed, and that the grease zerk is just a placebo. These bearings only cost $4 each from Vans and I found them for about the same price on Amazon. Guys just run them as is and replace them when they start to make noise.

This seems like a really mickey mouse setup but it's what I have on hand so thats what I'm using. I may upgrade to a better wheel with actual bearings at some point in the future depending on how long these last.

I also had to swap out for a thin washer to have any hope of getting a cotter pin in the hole without really cranking down on the nut and making the friction even worse.

Installed everything, torqued, adjusted & safetied as appropriate.