Metal Gear Leg Stiffeners

[PilotjohnS]

Originally Posted by David Paule

so the most weight efficient material for buckling resistance is the lowest density of these.

.

Dave

I have seen too many old 914s go up in flames with wheel fires, so I wont be using magnesium. I guess aluminum is best. Now should it be 6061 or 7xxx?

[DanH]

Originally Posted by PilotjohnS

I guess aluminum is best. Now should it be 6061 or 7xxx?

At the practical level, they are effectively the same modulus, the property of interest here.

[eric.the.blonde]

I like it and wish I had the training of a suspension engineer. It seems you have succeeded in stiffening the spring in the same direction the system's dampeners (tires) perform poorly. The higher inflation pressure suggests/confirms a shift in the harmonic.

It will be interesting to see how much the system wears over time. A failure of one leg's stiffener could prove scary.

I have no training for proper analysis so nothing has or will be acted on: I have often wondered whether a urethane encapsulated gear leg would improve stiffness in the fore-aft direction while also improving dampening. I have also wondered whether welding a rod to the leg (in place of the mechanically attached bar) would achieve the same result.

[David Paule]

As for the material, what DanH said.

========

DO NOT WELD TO THE GEAR LEG!

You'd destroy the heat-treatment of it and add a stress concentration. In fact, except for the RV-3 slider, there's no welding on any part of any of the RVs, as far as I know.

Dave

[EdH]

Thanks for this… will be a job on mine at sometime.

[KiloWhiskey1]

Planning on doing this next week on our 3.

Has anyone used a taper pin in place of the gear leg/engine mount bolt? If so, could you please post the part number?

[Ralph Inkster]

Maybe AL at AntiSplat should consider this issue as thought for a future product offering...
I think his clamping method would be more superior for this than the Adell clamp approach.

[Larry DeCamp]

Ralph~,
`Can you describe the clamp concept in case Antisplat doesn’t chime in. It is my opinion you can optimize bending modulus and section modulus to perfection, but loose it all with minuscule slack that decouples the beam from the gear leg.

[Ralph Inkster]

I was referring to the style of clamp Al used for mounting his bar to the gear leg.

I guess AntiSplat has discontinued his Nose Job product. I assume the market for that product dried up with the introduction of the new style nose gear from Vans.
You can still view it on the AntiSplat website or on his videos.

[scsmith]

I wonder about introducing some actual damping into this system. For example, if the holes in the aluminum plate were drilled 5/16" and then filled with short rubber bushings made from 5/16" neoprene vacuum tubing, or even better some harder rubber, or Delrin, with a 3/16" ID, then put the AN3 hardware through that.

With the rubber cushions removed from the Adel clamps, the only remaining damping is from the Gorilla tape and any slippage. I would anticipate that the Gorilla tape will get cut thru by the Adel clamp edges fairly quickly, leaving the clamps to chafe on the gear leg. I also wouldn't be surprised to find that the Adel clamps fatigue and crack at the 90-degree bend in the clamp.