Brief Description: Set breakout force on nose gear fork.
Today I finished drilling the tire inflation holes on the wheel pants. I then packed them away for later work. I removed the nose wheel from the fork and proceeded to determine the breakout force. I made the spring catch shown on the drawing and borrowed a hangar neighbor's fish scale. After some trial and error, I finally set the torque of the fork nut to the 22 lbs breakout force. That was the easy part.
I then started drilling the gear leg steel with my cordless Makita drill while lying on my side with my shoulder on the floor. I drained two cordless drills of their power trying to drill the holes. After wearing out two 1/8" drill bits and breaking one, I finally got the two holes drilled through the hard steel between the castled nut openings. Then came the Antisplat skid plate that had to be drilled. I drilled one side of the skid while inserted on the gear leg. I then moved to the vise to drill the other side but, of course, I didn't drill perfectly straight! I couldn't get the cotter pin in until I opened the hole up with a #30 bit to slightly oversize. It took me 2 1/2 hours to complete the job. It was a hot and muggy day and I sweated at least on 16 oz. bottle of water. Nobody said it would be easy!!
Wheel and tire removed from the nose gear fork.
Fork bolt torqued and cotter pin hole drilled.
AntiSplat skid plate drilled and cotter pinned to nose gear fork.
