Catching up

I burned my right hand pretty badly in April, so there was a big gap in building.  Here is where I'm at now.

This is the main gear with the wheels mounted.  The most difficult part of doing this bit is cutting semi-circles into the gear (a one piece aluminum piece that acts as its own spring).  They have to be cut to accommodate the threaded studs from the gear mounting plates.

You can see the studs in this picture.  The gear is sandwiched between two chunks of rubber and a clamp made out of an aluminum extrusion that fits over the studs.  Castle nuts hold the whole thing together.

The wheels are mounted on aluminum axles that bolt onto the end of the gear.  I had to pack the two sets of tapered roller bearings to fit between the wheels and the axle.  Then there is the brake.  The black rotor is visible on the outside of the wheel.  The Grove brakes are discs, with one moving pad on the inside.  The brake floats on two studs, to keep it centered while braking.  In order for the brakes to slide on the stud.  In order to fit, the corner of the gear has to be ground / filed / sanded down to allow the brake to slide easily.  Lots of elbow grease in filing this sucker.

Mounted, the gear looks like this;

Clearly, two wheels are not enough.  So the plane has a third.

I wanted to mount this before starting on the firewall forward to avoid interferences, and to keep the hot parts away from the bungee suspension.

Below is the closeup of the lower mounting bracket.

This bracket holds a plastic that acts as a bearing, and is supported on the circle of the bracket - that allows for the round shaft of the nosegear.

 This is the wheel and tire.  The wheels are Matco instead of Grove, and don't have brakes.  Same type of bearing.  And unlike car wheels, these wheels split so you don't need a tire mounting machine.  The tires have tubes.