Brief Description: Lower Nose Gear Bearing Support
In the original nose gear design, there was a ball bearing that the nose gear rod fit through. This would allow for reduced friction for turning, but would not allow the rod to also move up and down. Since I was modifying the design to allow for shock absorption, I needed something that would allow the nose gear rod to both turn for steering and move up and down. This is what I came up with.
These are two HDPE bearing plates (plastic, which I believe are HDPE as they were cut from a cutting board). The bottom one is shaped to fit the inside of the fuselage where the nose gear rod will exit. The top one is flat and will have an aluminum plate riveted to it for extra strength (I still need to make that plate).
The last picture shows the HDPE bearing plates in place in the lower portion of the front fuselage (to the left in this picture) with a sample nose gear rod passing from outside (to the left) through the bearing plates and up into the nose gear tube (to the right).
