Chapter 9 - Main gear - Part 3

Progress on this project has been quite slow lately. I have been very slowly working on getting the main gear axles installed. The plans do not describe this process in much detail and I had a hard time figuring out how to mount the flat axle and flat aluminum plate to a somewhat oval shaped strut.

I ended up laying a thin flox bed on the strut and clamping the axle in place with some plastic in place to keep the strut from bonding. I then sanded the flox flat.

Then I spread the strut apart with a come-a-long and wedged it with a 4x4. I then mounted it upside down on the fuselage. I was not quite clear why this was recommended (by a forum contributer) however I realized was able to ensure the axles were mounted at the same waterline (height) when the full weight of the aircraft is bearing down on the gear.

I then took the strut down and clamped it to the side of my work bench. I carefully measured for toe in and sanded the cured flox flats until the axles were in the proper position. I then layed up 6 ply of bid and, using clamps, bonded the axles to the strut.

After the axles were cured and glass trimmed, I bonded 3"x3" aluminum plates to the inside of the strut with 10 layers of bid (I used 10 to ensure the plate was relatively flat and parallel to the axle. After that cured I trimmed the aluminum plate and made fine adjustments to the strut to ensure the break parts will not bind on the strut.

You may notice the many hardware store washers on the bolts mounting the axles. The bolts are too long and I will order some shorter bolts and discard the washers.