bird

bird

Well Known Member
I have installed the hardware that Tom Brink with Gahco sent me onto my rv8. I have them torqued and they fit very well. The special washer under the bolt head and one washer under the nut, worked perfect. They torqued down and met the 30 thousands minimum on the wear plate. So, it was successful. The outboard bolt heads will not be covered under the cover plate. It is not an issue for me, I am not positive but I think the intersection fairing will cover it. I just have to provide some relief holes in the cover plate for the heads being they are taller than the standard bolt. I gave a lot of thought to putting the heads inside the fuselage gear box facing down, like some have done, but decided to put them like the plans said. The nuts in the gear box where very easy to get a socket with a universal on, then about 13inches of extension and it was out of the box and easy to put a ratchet on. The bolts and nuts are 12 point. Very good, no pains.

The nuts Van's provided may be strong enough, but marginal in my opinion After studying the washers that Vans sent me, I think I found the real problem that others have had. The washers are not aircraft standard, therefore the outside diameter is larger. Now this washer will interfere with the "u" channel radius that they must fit in. If these washers are not ground down to provide a relief, the nut will have stress on it that it was not designed for, causing failure.

I am satisfied that the hardware will be of good service, so that's one area that I will not have to be concerned about anymore. If anyone else is interested in getting this hardware just contact Tom Brink and Gahco, he is an advertiser here on VAF. One note is he is going to be out of office until Oct. 1st. He also has some pics that I sent him of the install that I am sure he would be happy so send anyone interested.

Airplane actually rolled out of the shop for the first time!! Yay!!

bird
 
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Landing Gear Hardware P/N's

Thanks for your help through PM Bird and also Stephen!

I contacted GAHco today and while Tom was not available, the gal that answered was helpful and I have the following on the way for my outboard landing gear bolts, washers and nuts: ( I hope I got it right!)

Bolts: NAS6606-27 (They don't stock the 6206 and the 6606 have a longer thread area by a couple threads so no issue)

Nuts: NAS1804-6 (12 point replacing Van's stock nut.)

Washer for nut end: MS20002-6 (the MS20002C-6 has a chamfered I.D.)

If you choose to switch to a 12 point flanged bolt instead of the NAS6206 or 6606, I think this is a MS21250, you must use the "C" version of the MS20002, above, or the MS21299-6, which is similar to the MS20002, but slightly larger diameter.

A great place to view the actual specification drawings on hardware is:
http://www.diamondfasteners.com but you their search is not working so enter a space after the URL and then the spec or description you are looking for and it will search their site.
 
FYI,

I was struggling to find many places that carry the NAS1804-6 nuts to go on my grove gear. GAHco's website makes me want to chew my keyboard and my phone call to them wasnt much better so I thought I would check the locals. First call was to Straight Flight at Centennial and they had them in stock! $2.50 each....because I needed 4 and they have a $10 minimum. Saved over $5 per nut and shipping....check your locals!

The 1804's combined with the gear tower oval hole mod made installing these nuts a one man non event. Still not fun, but not overly difficult either. Still need a buddy to torque them though.
 
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