Main Gear Installation (6)

6 hours

I spent most of the day messing around trying to get the main gear installed.  I thought I had the correct bolts to install the engine mount for good, but somehow they were all like a full inch too long...  I don't know what I  was thinking when I ordered those.  So for now I installed the mount using my hardware store bolts, and I'll swap them out one at a time when the new ones show up.

Anyway on to the gear itself.  I thought it might be easiest to drill and install the axle assemblies to the legs first, so I could drill them on the drill press.  My axles didn't have pilot holes drilled in them like the plans indicated, so I drilled my own 3/16" hole.  Then I inserted the gear leg all the way and clamped the assembly to a v-block on my drill press, using a very scientific rig to hold the leg level.

I carried the 3/16" hole through the leg, which was slow going but not too bad on the drill press.  It probably took about 15 minutes per hole.  Updrilling to 1/4" only took a minute or two.

Next came installing the legs into the engine mount.  This is where I spent most of the time.  The sleeves that the legs fit into were painted on the inside, so the legs weren't even close to fitting inside.  I tried a bunch of different methods of sanding the insides of the sleeves.  The best way I found was to take the little honing tool I used on the rudder pedal blocks, and wrap it with 220 grit sandpaper.  Then just spin the crap out of it inside the sleeve.  Eventually I got both legs inserted.  It's a very tight fit, which is good, but I had to remove the axles so I could pound on the end of the leg with a rubber mallet.

Anyway, I got both legs inserted until they were flush at the top, which is where they seem like they should be according to the plans.

Then I reinstalled the axles, and threw the brake calipers and wheels on.  My plan was to do the 2x4 method of setting the alignment which is explained here and here.

I spent an hour or so trying to do the alignment using the 2x4's to control the angle of the tires, but I had some issues.  First, I didn't feel like the 2x4's had much grip on the tires.  I could move them quite a bit before putting any real torque on the gear, and it took a LOT of force to rotate the legs within the engine mount.  I also realized that I had to jack up the plane any time I needed to adjust the height.  Overall I found it to be too difficult to do accurately, so I think I'm going to go back to the factory method of setting the toe-in alignment.