Joe Mckamey
Member
The RV12 maintenance manual says to remove the wings before you put the plane on stands to replace tires. Seems like more work than needed. Anyone else just leave the wings on when getting wheels off the ground?
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Removing wings to replace tires?
- Thread starter Joe Mckamey
- Start date
I see no reason to remove the wings for wheel work. This is my method, I usually do one wheel at a time but can lift the whole plane if needed to put on saw horses.
No reason to remove wings for wheel/tire work: the Maintenance Manual instructions (see Bob Y's post for excerpt) work well-- pay attention to aligning the "sawhorses" on the bulkhead rivet lines. Having the rear sawhorse about 27.5" tall works better than the 25" specified. Padded, of course. I lift the tail using a floor jack on top of a work stand.
I'll be the devil's advocate and point out that while it's not necessary, removing the wings is really easy if you can get a helper for 5 minutes. Work on the wheels, tires, and brakes is much much easier to do without crawling under a wing. For me it always seems like a bigger deal to pull the wings that it really is, and the payoff comes in being easier to get around and access things for a thorough inspection and cleaning. I get made fun of for hitting my head on things all the time, so this may be a very personal preference. 
As an example on an airplane I have for inspection now. Brake pads seemed fine when things were all together, but it needs new tires. The first side I pulled apart to replace a tire, everything else was fine. When I pulled the other side apart, one pad was significantly worn and made no sense to reinstall. This means new pads. Pads are replaced as a set. In a 'jack one side' scenario, I would now be going back and forth to also re-do the other side that was serviceable. In some cases, that's enough to discourage thorough work and defer something that is technically within a service limit but really should be replaced. Up on jack with easy access, doing both sides in parallel made it trivial to step up the level of care.
As an example on an airplane I have for inspection now. Brake pads seemed fine when things were all together, but it needs new tires. The first side I pulled apart to replace a tire, everything else was fine. When I pulled the other side apart, one pad was significantly worn and made no sense to reinstall. This means new pads. Pads are replaced as a set. In a 'jack one side' scenario, I would now be going back and forth to also re-do the other side that was serviceable. In some cases, that's enough to discourage thorough work and defer something that is technically within a service limit but really should be replaced. Up on jack with easy access, doing both sides in parallel made it trivial to step up the level of care.
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