The Inevitable Happened...

[cderk]

Cross-posted on the RV10 Facebook page...

Whelp, i had a bad feeling going into this and my worst fear came true. I got the plane up on its gear on Saturday. Doesn’t fit through the opening of my garage door. My opening is about 94” wide and 77” tall.

Looking for anyone who may have had a similar situation and figured out a way around it. The best suggestion I think I have thus far is using some kind of low profile dolly, mounting the gears and leaving the wheels off.

Has anyone else done this? I’m trying to determine how viable it is before enlisting the help of a bunch of guys to lift this thing back up onto my bench to try again.

Thanks!
Charlie

[Kyle Boatright]

I assume your problem is garage door height. Is the actual door frame too low, or does the last section of the garage door get in the way? If it is the last section of the door, you may be able to retract it further by pulling the manual release lever and raising the door further.

If not, a set of dollies is your answer.

Oh, and you should resize or delete the pic. It is huge and messes up the page's format. Besides, it doesn't tell us anything about the problem..

[cderk]

The opening is too small - has nothing to do with the door itself. You?re right, the door can be pushed up further. I?m off on the height and width by about 2? each dimension

Originally Posted by Kyle Boatright

I assume your problem is garage door height. Is the actual door frame too low, or does the last section of the garage door get in the way? If it is the last section of the door, you may be able to retract it further by pulling the manual release lever and raising the door further.

If not, a set of dollies is your answer.

Oh, and you should resize or delete the pic. It is huge and messes up the page's format. Besides, it doesn't tell us anything about the problem..

[jcaplins]

For height: can you remove the wheels?
For width: I assume it's the gear itself that's too wide? Can you use a ratchet strap to pull them in a couple inches?

[Deweyclawson]

Can't help you if we don't know the problem.
Is it the width or the height of the opening or both...

I put my 10 in an enclosed trailer that was both not tall enough and not wide enough to fit the plane. and the trailer was too short, but we got it in.

[219PB]

Have you let most of the air out of the tires?

Thinking out the box here. What about removing the tires from the rim, laying down a strip of 3/8" thick rubber conveyor material and rolling the aircraft on these? As stated before, you could ratchet strap in the wheels to narrow the width.

You also could replace the tires on the rim with a solid rubber tire off of a tricycle or other donor vehicle loosely installed. To clarify, find the appropriate sized rubber and remove from the tricycle wheel and install your rim through it. It would carry the load with your rim maybe an inch off of the floor.

[rv7charlie]

Just throwing spaghetti at the ceiling...

Cut a couple of discs out of plywood or hardwood & drill the center slightly larger than the axle dia.

Or, sit gear legs on 1/4" plate (or even a length of 2x4), plate/2x4 on a series of small dia dowels or pipe, forming a roller conveyor. Takes 2 or 3 people to move the dowels from back to front as you roll. If it works for multi-ton machine tools, it should work for the plane.

Or, three cheap Harbor Freight 4 wheel furniture dollies, with recessed pockets almost touching the floor for the legs w/o the wheels.

Or, remove one leg & rest that side of the fuselage on a furniture dolly.

[painless]

Sledgehammer. You wanted a wider garage door anyway, right?

[cderk]

Originally Posted by Deweyclawson

Can't help you if we don't know the problem.
Is it the width or the height of the opening or both...

I put my 10 in an enclosed trailer that was both not tall enough and not wide enough to fit the plane. and the trailer was too short, but we got it in.

As I mentioned above - the height and the width is off by about 2 inches in each dimension. in otherwords, the opening height is about 2" too short and the opening width is 2" too narrow.

[Mike S]

Going through at an angle will take care of the width issue, lowering the air pressure may take care of the height or if not, remove wheels and put the axle on a dolly.

The Harbor Freight dolly will roll any direction, so the angle/skew track is easy to do.