[rockwoodrv9]

I am mounting the WD-921-L-PC gear mount for the mains for an A model. The fuselage was built as a tail wheel, so I am having to put them in out of normal build order. It is going fine until I tried to fit the gear tube in the hole in the floor. The pattern clearly shows removing some of the gold flange on the spar. There is NO WAY I am removing anything gold without seeing if that is correct. I don't think there is much if any strength from that flange right next to the edge, but wanted to see if it is standard procedure. You can see the area in the photo marked in red. I will get the aluminum shavings out before I do a final fit. Thanks.

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[cln1owner]

Rockwood,

You will need to cut into the flange some, and you will need to modify the rivets in that area to be double countersunk.

I don't have a photo of the flange itself after the cut, but this was my initial marking of the skin for the cutout. If I remember correctly it ended up being pretty close to this line:


Photo of the five rivet holes that are double countersunk:

 

[rockwoodrv9]

Thanks Nate. My markings look just like yours. It was to scary to grind out some of the "gold" stuff without asking first. I did notice the double flush rivets I will have to replace too. So far the change hasn't been too bad. Im looking at an engine mount that will take both gear. It was designed for float planes and appears to work well for them. I can't imagine an RV float plane for me, but the one I know of, the guy loves it.

 

[bruceh]

Yes, you have to take a big semi circle out of the flange on the center section to get them to fit.

As Nate pointed out, the plans have some double flush rivets required under the weldment. Probably easier to do some extra squishing of the existing rivets than to try to drill them out and re-set them. There is also a rivet hole you will have to open up for the brake line. The hole for the brake line didn't line up that great with my gear weldments, so you might wait to enlarge that hole until you have the weldment in place.

 

[rockwoodrv9]

Bruce, I was looking at your site earlier making sure I knew what was going on! Thanks for the tip about the brake line. I have to un-do a bunch of wiring to get them through the gear mount. Oh well, it is all fun!

 

[niblettda]

Yup, I can also confirm that you will end up taking out a bit of the flange. I didn't need much, and as I recall most of it had to come out in order to jockey the weldment into position. Once it's in, it actually doesn't hit the flange.

You can check my site in the Fuselage section starting at 11/3/09.

 

[BSwayze]

I wanted to chime in here, too, if I may. I have some pictures on my site showing the cutout I made in this area. The 7A is the same fuselage as the 9A so this applies. Here's a picture taken, with the fuse upside down before I "flipped the canoe".

Here it is, with the gear leg weldment in place:

I might also make a couple of comments about these weldments. The powder coating partially fills in the holes for the bolts and you will want to run a reamer through the holes to clean them up and make sure the bolts go easily through them, or you will frustrate yourself wondering why they won't go in.

Another issue I ran into was that the weldment was teeter-tottering on one rivet head on the center section spar. As you can see, the weldment comes with holes to clear most of the rivets, but I had to cut a small notch in the side of the weldment to clear this one rivet head. The red arrow points to it in this pic:

There's lots more discussion and more pics on this page, if you'd like more details:

Gear Leg Cutout and Installation

There's one more problem area that I ran into, that I should mention. This picture shows how one of the floor stiffener angles ran into the weldment, and I had to trim it a bit for clearance:

I hope all of this helps!

 

[rockwoodrv9]

BSwayze - Bruce. Thanks for the pictures. I am running into a couple of the same issues you did with a couple rivets. The pictures made it easier to understand and that I wasn't crazy! Because the panel is already mounted and some of the wiring is done, it does make it a little tricky to get everything to fit in place. I had to trim the stiffener also. I have one ready to mount and the other I should get tonight. I will take some pictures once I am done.

Thanks all for the help.