Many RANS S7 owners have reported issues with wear in the main gear socket. The man gear nests into a socket welded into the fuselage. Apparently torque and vibration from the gear leg eventually causes the main gear bolt to wear on the gear socket tubing wall. The wear increaes until the holes in the tube wall are ovals, causing movement of the leg in the socket. This manefests itself in tracking problems, vibration and alignment issues with the main gear. I have read of several modifications to the gear socket that other owners have used to combat this issue.
I decided to modify the socket as I assembled the fuselage. My neighbor Keith is an engineer/machinist. I had several ideas for ways to modify the socket. Keith listened to my ideas, shook his head and said he would take care of it. A couple of weeks later he came over with a pair of custom designed and machined clamshell-type appliances. The units is machined out of a billet of high-strength allow. It has a heli-coil insert for the main bolt, and four cap-screws that clamp the appliance around the socket. The total weight of each unit is about 4.5 to 5 ounces (my two postal scales disagree).
I will include some additional photos in a few more entries following this one. There is a limit of three photos per construction entry.
