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skidmk

Well Known Member
Good morning, I'm about to install Van's gear, however once I'm flying, I plan on upgrading to grove gear.

Is it a bolt on retrofit, or should I do something for furture planning?

thanks

Mike
 
Mike,

The Grove gear will bolt into the same holes so that is not a problem, However the Grove gear is a little thicker and a little wider than Vans so the U-Bracket holding the gear at the outer edge is a little higher and wider and requires modification to the cover plate and a little trimming of the Z cross members. It should be able to be done later without a problem. I would wait until you put in the Grove gear to do the upper gear leg interection fairing as it might be different.
 
Yes it is a bolt on replacement. But ALL of your fairings, upper, lower, main, and pants will be affected.
One major change is the brake line routing. Its a real paint on the thicker legs to get the bulkhead fitting in the tower. I imagine even worse as a retro fit. I recommend my gear tower mod to aid in dealing with this issue later.
 
My plan, was to fly it without all the fairings till I had the extra cash. One of the attractions with the grove gear (aerodynamic) was not having to mess around with as many fairings.
 
Aluminum

Dan,
The Grove gear has the aerodynamic shape when you receive them. They also have the brake fluid passage drilled inside the leg and you only have a fitting on the top end, no lines down the leg and a fitting on the bottom of the leg.

Regards,
 
Price

The Groves are $1400-$1800. Anyone know does Van's charge for theirs? Is the landing gear included in the fuselage or finish kit?
 
Not all of the Grove gear are airfoil shaped - that is an extra cost option. I have the plain rectangular shaped ones and just wanted the weight savings. As I recall, I got about $750 credit on my Van's order by deleting the normal steel gear legs. Since I ordered kits all together, I don't know if that's fuselage kit or finishing kit.
 
A saw on the Grove site that you can have the drilled brake lines come out the front, back, bottom of the gear leg. Can anybody tell me which one is the best route to go for with the brake system? Also how strong are these gears compared to the stock Vans?
 
I believe that Grove's standard is to have the brake line connection come out the front of the gear. The problem that you wil run into is that since the gear is wider, there is less room between the gear and the cross members to get a fitting in. MIckey COggins has some pictures on his website showing what he did for this. Personally I think the best place to exit the gear is on the top, although I'm not sure if this will work on the 2 piece gear since they angle inward. If you can exit on top, you can drill a 3/4" hole in the bottom of the tower the AN4 fitting will extend right up into the tower and you can connect the brake line inside the tower.

I have a 1 piece gear from Grove and that is what I did on mine, but it is straight across all the way without the angle toward the innner bolt.
 
the gear comes with the Fuse kit,

you need to eliminate part# U-801-l, U-801-R, 2) U-803-PC and 2) U-804-PC
from your order


I was credited a total of $561.54 on my order (this is last years prices)
 
EMBpilot said:
A saw on the Grove site that you can have the drilled brake lines come out the front, back, bottom of the gear leg. Can anybody tell me which one is the best route to go for with the brake system? Also how strong are these gears compared to the stock Vans?
Click to expand...
If a direct comparison can be made to Van's stock gear, I'd be interested to review the results too. Grove gear is fashioned from 7075-T651. This alloy according to Alcoa is a very high strength material used for highly stressed structural parts. I'm told the alloy is susceptible to corrosion so short of a full blown paint job when the time comes, I plan to at least prime vulnerable areas on the legs. I already epoxy primed the (included) 4130 steel brackets because 4130 steel will rust if unprotected. As to the ideal placement of the drilled brake lines....I dunno....I hope Grove drilled for the most appropriate locations! The blue plugs on the leg are protecting the brake line holes.

errata02315fz2.jpg
errata00412dv1.jpg
 
Thanks guys. That helps a lot. And they do look good in the pics. I guess when it comes to hole placement, I will just have to have faith in Grov and trust that they know where to put them for best results. Thanks again.
 
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