[RScott]

With the nice machined finish on the gear legs where they contact the sockets, I expected the surface on the sockets to be an equally smooth surface. Mine are not. They are rough, have tooling marks and something like welding spatter.

Are yours like mine? Did you smooth them out?

Thanks.

 

[Bob Brown]

Mine were not finished as nicely as the gear legs, I had to sand off some errant powder coating, but other than that, it was a tight smooth fit, especially that last inch or so. Can you post a pic?

 

[Rupester]

Mine gear leg sockets were in the same condition as yours. I removed all the "garbage"with some emery cloth and mechanically-aided rotary motion. Turned out fine.

 

[chaskuss]

Richard,
My gear leg sockets were in the same condition as yours. I had powder coating inside the socket and tight spots from the welding, which appears to have been done AFTER the sockets were sized.
I purchased an import adjustable reamer from MSC. I sized the reamer .001" larger than the gear legs and reamed the sockets to size. I don't believe you can keep a tight fit the whole length of the socket, cleaning up the socket by hand.
I mounted the reamer in the chuck of a friend's engine lathe. I used the tail stock to center the opposite end of the socket with the chucked up reamer. Using only my hand, I rotated the chuck and fed the socket into the reamer. This method was quick and easy. It produced excellent results on my 8A sockets. Two local RV-9A builders had the same problem, so I performed this clean up on their sockets as well.
Charlie Kuss