Matt Dralle
Site Admin
Joined: 08 Nov 2005
Posts: 25203
Location: Livermore CA USA
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 Posted: Wed May 27, 2009 11:59 am Post subject: Alternate RV-8 Gear Leg Alignment Proceedure |
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Dear Listers,
I devised a different method for doing the initial gear leg alignment on the RV-8 this past weekend. When I flipped the fuselage back right side up and bolted the axles on, I was very pleased to find that both the left and right gear and axles are perfectly aligned without any shim. Best part was the procedure is pretty easy and doesn't take much "tinkering" around to get right.
I bought two 8' long, 1.5" wide pieces of angle aluminium from the hardware store. The kind *without* the radius at the center. I used the bolt pattern from the wheel pant mount to drill two 1/4" holes in the center of each piece and then bolted them to the gear legs. I then measured precisely between the gear and came up with 65 11/16". I went back to Lowes and had them carefully cut a piece of 3/8" particle board to the 65 11/16" measurement and left the 48" side as is. Their gantry saw was off by about 1/16" in squareness but we flipped the board over and sliced just enough off to make it exactly the desired width. A measurement corner-to-corner showed that it was perfectly square.
I took this perfectly parallel piece of board and put into the channel formed by the two pieces of aluminium angles between the gear legs. Its really easy at that point to see if the gear legs are parallel or not and just as easy to adjust them so they are. I added a couple of wood clamps and the whole thing was very stable and rigid and allowed for accurate drilling of all the holes.
Once the fuselage was flipped back over, I used the same 8' long piece of angle to check the toe-in/toe-out of both axles and found them to be perfectly aligned. The angle really makes it easy to tell if they are in alignment.
Anyway, I thought I pass this process along for other builders. It seems a lot easier and more accurate than using plumb bobs. I've attached a number of photos of the setup.
Best regards,
Matt Dralle
RV-8 #82880
Gear Mounted (whew), Wheels & Brakes Next...
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Matt Dralle
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