Replacement outer wear plate arrived as I overdrilled the original and wasnt happy with the fit. Wearplate re-drilled slightly undersize, then reamed using the taper reamers. Very snug fit! Ive rimed the aluminium Grove gear, but the paint thickness is enough to prevent easy fitting odf the U-bracket so will have to sand the paint off at the bracket point. No way is this undercarriage going to move!
Had much head scratching on the use of the bolts on the inner wear plate... some side-by-side aircraft with one piece gear use just the outer brackets, leaving the middle section to flex under extreme loads. Consensus seems to be that any flex on an RV8 is likely to be minimal, so why not use the two inner mounting points and their associated steel fittings to spread the load away from the longerons. Decided that this was the best solution, so the single 7/16th hole marked each side and drilled on the bench drill. Perfect fit, both laterally and fore-aft with no twist. Vans recommend working to a tolerance of 1/4 inch... mine are within one mm.
