Gear leg attach bolts

[Greg Arehart]

Long story short, I put on my larger tires a few days ago and had a profound shimmy in the wheels at about 25 mph which turns out to be an elongated hole in the R gear leg socket. I am going to ream the hole and go to a slightly larger bolt. My question is whether I should go with a straight bolt or is a taper pin a better option for long-term stability?

Thanks,
Greg

[N661DJ]

Greg,
Had the same problem recently on a friends 6, approx. 400hrs TT.
Be sure you have a good set of drills and reamers, the gear leg is Hard and difficult to drill but can be done.
Dick

[alcladrv]

Originally Posted by Greg Arehart

Long story short, I put on my larger tires a few days ago and had a profound shimmy in the wheels at about 25 mph which turns out to be an elongated hole in the R gear leg socket. I am going to ream the hole and go to a slightly larger bolt. My question is whether I should go with a straight bolt or is a taper pin a better option for long-term stability?

Thanks,
Greg

After you're done, could you give us some feedback on the tooling you used and how well it worked? I think I have the same issue on my -7A.

I asked Ken Scott at Vans about it and, if I understood him correctly, he said that filling in the hole on the landing gear mount with a "weld" and redrilling it was the way to fix it. The whole process was somewhat unclear to me other than I understood that the mount had to be removed from the plane.

Thanks,

Mike

[jrs14855]

I have posted on this before. If the hole in the gear leg is ok and just the socket hole is elongated:
Fabricate some custom washers, made from sections of heavy wall tubing larger than the gear socket. DON'T make them perfectly round, a teardrop on one end is better. Drill and ream them to a light drive fit on the bolt you want to use. Jig the gear in place with the washers and longer bolts. Tack weld the washers in place with mig or tig. One tiny tack weld let it cool off, then another tack weld. Do not get the gear leg hot. Remove the engine mount and weld around the washers. This is so much better than filling the holes and trying to redrill.
Another option is standard oversize bolts, NOT 1/16 larger but a few thousands oversize. I think you will find it is nearly impossible to do a quality job with the engine in place. If you wind up going oversize I have had good luck using a series of reamers, reaming a minimum amount each time. In other words, assuming a 5/16 bolt, start with a .314 reamer then
.316 etc until you get the size you need. Use a strong 1/2" drill motor and some good cutting oil, don't force it, don't get it hot. MSC has a website and has all sizes reamers.