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Landing gear strut bolt

jamcgee1978

jamcgee1978

Active Member
Evening from a mildly damp and windy Scotland,

so started inserting in the temporary bolts for the struts, 3 of them fine no problem however how do you get a spanner on the bottom bolt nearest the skin at the bottom. Spent a hour cursing, grabbed a beer and retreated for the night. :LOL:Tried a number of different methods no joy. Any input most welcomeckXZwc3-0%21sizeoriginal.jpegWVmsQRs-0%21sizeoriginal.jpeg
 
jamcgee1978 said:
Evening from a mildly damp and windy Scotland,

so started inserting in the temporary bolts for the struts, 3 of them fine no problem however how do you get a spanner on the bottom bolt nearest the skin at the bottom. Spent a hour cursing, grabbed a beer and retreated for the night. :LOL:Tried a number of different methods no joy. Any input most welcomeView attachment 68610View attachment 68611
Click to expand...
You shouldn’t ‘screw’ these into the holes. Drop the bolt into ice water (dry ice even better), apply gentle heat to the hole. Remove the bolt, dry off, spray light lube, tap into the hole with mallet and/or wood punch. For the final bolts, be sure to clean any oil off the threads before torquing. Because there is so much friction try to torque the nut. If you must torque the bolt first measure the ‘running torque’ and add that to the desired torque for setting your wrench.
 
More importantly make sure the weight is off the wing. Get someone else giggle the wing till you find the sweet spot so it can slide it.
 
I used a thin wood block and a mallet to tap that AN5 bolt into my place. Wasn’t fun.

I also used my 7 year old’s skinny hands get those nuts in place between the spars. Gotta love child labor.
 
It’s also possible that the weldment isn’t perfectly formed and/or has marginally thicker than usual powdercoating locally.
The original WD1021 was significantly different in design. The outboard vertical flange you are having an issue with was previously “floating” and not tied into the spar. It did have some “give” - probably why there are cracks in that exact spot on very high time original 10s.
So beefing it up, making the vertex continuous (no flex) then add in the mild taper of the fuselage and everything gets pretty tight quickly.
All that said.
I’d try removing all other bolts and working on that one in isolation. As others have said a fair bit of persuasion may be required.
I’d expect the bolt head to deeply scratch the powdercoating so make sure you prime the scratches later.
Good luck
 
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