Brief Description: Landing gear and wheels installation - Part 1.
A buddy of mine was over to help with the initial installation of the main landing gear and wheels. I used my engine hoist to jack the fuselage up while we bolted the gear legs in place. I'm using aftermarket Airfoiled Grove gear and brackets which went on pretty well. It was tricky to get my socket wrench inside the gear leg towers but was able with a combination of extensions and a universal joint. The Van's plans calls for a space of 0.030 between the outboard brackets face and wear plate with a final torque of 20 foot / lbs. With so much play in the universal joint and the angle of the wrench I'm not sure if I got the required torque setting. I just stopped at a 0.030 gap and will call Grove to find out if the Van's instructions correlates to the Grove gear / Bracket set up as the Grove gear is thicker and therefore the brackets are taller. I plan on removing the gear again at some point to prime the brackets and replace some of the hardware with new for final installation. The fuselage sits very high on the gear and will make things difficult to work on. Try to prolong this step for as long as possible. Thanks for your help John!
