Landing Gear Axle Alignment Technique

[gammaxy]

I tried both the method in the plans and Kip's method for aligning the axles. For me, figuring out how to remove the legs and axles from the airplane to drill on the drill press made the job much more enjoyable.

I did this by shimming between the gear leg and the axle assembly with paper until it was pretty tight, then I set the toe-in, then I used duct-tape to tape the axle assembly to the gear leg to further prevent it from rotating. I moved the entire gear leg and axle assembly to the drill press and drilled it with a 3/16" bit (I believe the holes in the assembly come from Sonex already drilled to this size) and updrilled to the final size. I found that drilling titanium on the drill press is no big deal and used black oxide bits I already had laying around for both legs with no noticeable dulling (I used a liberal amount of cutting fluid and tried not to get the bits very hot). I previously destroyed my fancy titanium bits when drilling the engine mount gear leg attachment by hand.

If I were to do it again, I think I'd stick with the plans method and drill on the drill press. If I was going to drill the axles while attached to the airplane, I'd probably use Kip's method.

[N111YX]

Remember, you don't know the results of your technique until you get about 25 landings and then take a peek at your tire wear... :D

[daleandee]

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[N111YX]

You are probably in good shape, Dale. I can get about 500-600 landings from a set while swapping the tires halfway. One side wears slightly more than the other. I knew of one Sonex pilot that had a bald tire every 30 landings...