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Gear legs won't fit into gear housing

R

rvamateur

Active Member
Turns out the gear housings are a few thousands under the size if the leg diameters. I intend to work on them with a small hone................any other creative solutions??
 
Sanding Drum

Its just a little surface corrosion. I used a fine sandpaper drum after spraying with some WD40.

Pat
 
rvamateur said:
Turns out the gear housings are a few thousands under the size if the leg diameters. I intend to work on them with a small hone................any other creative solutions??
Click to expand...

A brake cylinder hone will work fine. Available at most auto shops.

V
 
The snugger they are the better in my opinion. I think we used never seize on final installation.
 
:confused:Thanks for all the suggestions.............have honed and sanded for hours and the outside diameter of legs are still .02" bigger than inside diameter of mount so I will see what ideas van's has tomorrow.
 
Ron B. said:
The snugger they are the better in my opinion. I think we used never seize on final installation.
Click to expand...
These are more than snug. The bore is literally .02 smaller in diameter than the inner end of the gear leg. Until you get at least a .005 clearance or so, there is no chance of those parts going together. I measured mine at about .01 clearance before checking Mike's, and his is definitely a negative .02.:eek:
 
Wayne Gillispie said:
Gear legs= 1.749" and sockets= 1.755". Right where they should be.
Click to expand...
That is pretty much what mine are, but the gear sockets in question are around 1.72-1.73. Will be interesting to see what Van's suggests.
(in unison now:"We have never heard of that before"):rolleyes:
 
I found that my gear mounts did not fit all that well and when all the bolts were in, the ID for the leg was distorted out of round substantially. I had to drill out some of the bolt holes and put shims in to get the mount to fit right so the mounts did not distort. Took hours but solved the problem.

Try loosening all the mount bolts and trying the leg for fit. If still too tight, you'll have to buy an adjustable reamer and sneak up on it slowly. A brake hone will take many hours to remove a couple thou. 2 thou is .002. You don't want .02 clearance which is 20 thou.
 
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Where is measurement taken?

Where are you taking the socket measurement? Mine had a small "bead" of material (maybe just the coating) at the opening that preventing it from going in until that was cleaned up, then went in tight but fine.

Dwight
 
we can close the blog on this

While it wasn't the opening (we were measuring multiple places within the "collar" that reaches an inch and a half or more inside the lower leg housing)...............I last night was able to insert the leg, after over 6 hours of honing, sanding, and especially burning up my third Dremel during this build...........as a financial professional I must recomend a "buy" on the parent of "Dremel" as long as I am building aircraft which I hope is many years to come!

So we can conclude my crisis on the gear leg by concluding the many years my kit was sitting that either the original housing may not have been honed to the appropriate limits but also that years of corrosion had built up and distorted the measurements.
 
I used both a hard stone and a flapper wheel in the Dremel to grind the inside of the housing, then alot of honing with a brake hone to smooth, then graduating sandpapers to smooth further. The Dremel approach of course is impossible to keep the interior perfectly round however they remain so tight that there will be no play in them.
 
Perhaps this should be another thread, but Dremel's are not very good. I burned out at least three before I gave up on the brand.

I now have a Proxxon, German made, expensive, but a very high quality tool. (Cheap considering 3 X Dremel)

http://www.proxxontools.com/store/pc/viewPrd.asp?idcategory=0&idproduct=10

Does not run as fast as the Dremel, but runs all day and stays cool. Very long cord, great storage case.

Matter of fact, I am going to put this in the Review forum. I did a search and found Proxxon hasen't been mentioned before.

Bruce Patton
RV-6A flying since 1999
RV-10 in the very near future!
Moving to Independence Airpark next month!
 
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Gearlegs

My gear legs fitted perfectly, after cleaning the "surface rust" off the inside of the bushings and cleaning the gear legs with scotchbrite. My next question is what did everybody else do for the .310 or 7.9 mm drill bit, I can't seem to get a hold of one. Does anybody have one for me on loan, I will take good care of it, the holes just need to be reamed a little just to make the bolts of exactly 7.9 mm to go through.

Peter Lammers
Working on the gearlegs
 
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