Berchmans
Well Known Member
I just completed the task on installing the landing gear legs on my RV8 and thought I would pass on a little of what I learned. As most have found it can be somewhat of a challenge to get a socket wrench on the nuts in the gear towers. I had a few things I needed to do due to interferences. First I had to back off on the rearmost outboard AN 3 bolts in the tower base. I found that it was not necessary to remove the bolt completely but only to back the bolt into the nut. It was also necessary to remove one of the outboard screws above the rear nut as well.
Once I had these interferences removed it was not to difficult using a u-joint and extensions to snake a socket onto the nut. That's when I had an epithinay. The time consuming and difficult part is moving the socket from nut to nut. So I put together a second socket/u-joint/extension combination for the second nut and snaked it into place. Each assembly had it's own socket wrench as well. With both nuts secured I then had my helper torque the bolts from below in 5 lb increments to 240 inch pounds while I held the sockets in place. Once we reached 240 inch pounds I traded the socket wrenchs for the torque wrench and checked that the torque on the nuts was indeed 240 inch pounds. I figured if anything due to the friction on the bolt the nuts would be under torqued using this method.
Using this proceedure we were able to troque the nuts on all the bolts for both legs in about 1 hour. Not nearly as difficult at I anticipated.
Once I had these interferences removed it was not to difficult using a u-joint and extensions to snake a socket onto the nut. That's when I had an epithinay. The time consuming and difficult part is moving the socket from nut to nut. So I put together a second socket/u-joint/extension combination for the second nut and snaked it into place. Each assembly had it's own socket wrench as well. With both nuts secured I then had my helper torque the bolts from below in 5 lb increments to 240 inch pounds while I held the sockets in place. Once we reached 240 inch pounds I traded the socket wrenchs for the torque wrench and checked that the torque on the nuts was indeed 240 inch pounds. I figured if anything due to the friction on the bolt the nuts would be under torqued using this method.
Using this proceedure we were able to troque the nuts on all the bolts for both legs in about 1 hour. Not nearly as difficult at I anticipated.
