Getting it on the gear

05 Mar 2005 Getting it on the gear

Time to put the airplane on the gear. Normally the gear is installed much earlier, just after you drill the gear leg holes, but I decided to wait as long as possible so that working inside the fuselage would be easier and safer.

I’ve kind of run out of things to do, and the next big item to install is the engine, and I want the gear on before I do that.

First step was to build a really tall sawhorse. I bought some little plastic things from Home Depot last time I was in Austin, and they worked great with the 2x4s that are used to ship the QB. A bit of astroturf, and I was ready. Luckily Emmett was around to help me get the plane up on the sawhorse, and install the gear legs.

Notice how high the plane is. The bottom of the beams is about 7 feet high.

Here you can see we’ve got the left gear on. Note that I’ve got the Grove airfoil gear. Very nice, and much lighter than stock.

Oops. Small problem. I forgot to install the fitting for the brake line into the gear leg. Looks like the gear needs to come off again.

This is a shot of the hole for the fuel tank vent lines. These lines are in exactly the wrong place, since they block access to one of the nuts that hold on the gear leg. It needs to come off to tighten down the nut. Not a big deal, but if it were two inches to the left, it would not interfere. I hope the Van’s guys read my website. Right!

OK, next day, got the gear legs off, installed the fitting for the brake lines, and put the legs back on. Sounds easier than it was, but with Emmett’s help, it wasn’t too bad.

Here you can see, in the blurry photo, the 90 degree fitting on there. Another hint for a suppler – if the fitting were either more to the left or more to the right, it would be much easier to do the brake line.

Here you can see the cover will have some trouble. The Grove gear is a bit thicker, so the attach hardware is thicker, which means that everything sticks out a bit. I’m sure this will be easy to cover with the upper gear leg fairings.

Here’s how it looks with both gear legs on.

Now on to the brake lines!