gear leg installation

[wingnut99]

I finally got my motor mount and I'm ready to get the legs on my Waiex. It looks like you would have to slide the titanium legs into the engine mount and slide the axles on to determine exactly where the legs belong inside the mount. I'm guessing that you want to drill through the mount and then use the drill point mark on the leg for your guide to drill the 1/4" hole once it's in the drill press. So assuming that's the scenario, the legs aren't wanting to go into the mount without some persuading and then I have to get them out to drill the bolt holes and again to set the axle toe in and put the legs in the drill press for that process. My question is should I pound the titanium legs in with the mount on the firewall or on the work bench. Don't want to damage the firewall engine mount attachments. I'm not getting any instructions regarding any of this process on the plans or the Sonex support site. Thanks

[racaldwell]

One of my titanium legs would not come close to fitting in the socket on the engine mount. Looked to me like it was slightly warped from welding. I made a sanding drum to sand the inside of the socket. Then I sanded the outside of the titanium leg to get the machining marks off. That did the trick after much trial fitting. It is still very tight but at least removable. The other leg just needed the inside of the socket cleaned free of paint and some light sanding on the leg.

I drilled mine on both ends with a handheld drill. I used the drill jig made for drilling round objects and the top has the steel tube that was used for a guide. I made a drill bushing to get the pilot hole completed without the bit touching steel. That worked fine.

Rick Caldwell
Xenos 0057

[Spaceman]

I drilled my axles to the legs on a drill press first, and then installed the legs in the engine mount, set the alignment, and drilled the upper holes with everything in place, with a hand drill.

My gear legs were also super tight, so I had to do a lot of sanding of the inside of the mounts. I used a little honing tool from AutoZone, wrapped in sandpaper. Even after that I had to beat the absolute crap out of each leg to get them inserted all the way!!

I like the order I drilled mine in, because I ended up finding for whatever reason I needed one leg slightly higher in the mount than the other for the axles to be equidistant from the fuselage floor. If I had drilled the upper holes first with the legs flush with the top of the mount, I would have had to cut a little bit off of one leg to locate the axles in the right place. Plus once I got both legs whacked into place I never wanted to have to remove them and install them again!!

[Spaceman]

I went back and found exactly what I did. These three posts have all the details and a bunch of pictures so maybe that'll help!

https://paegelow.blogspot.com/2019/01/main-gear-6.html
https://paegelow.blogspot.com/2019/01/m ... nt-15.html
https://paegelow.blogspot.com/2019/02/m ... t-2-4.html

Caveat, I'm still building so I can't really say that my alignment is perfect... But to the best of my ability to measure things I think it's correct

[sonex1566]

I fabricated my own engine mount so the only person I could blame was me! You make me feel a bit better now that I know it wasn't just me. The tight leg on mine I found it easier to remove the engine mount and clamp the leg in a bench vice with soft jaws and then rotate the mount off the leg. I did need to raid my swear word container though. Fortunately I went to a lot of trouble setting the wheel alignment as per the plans and after 60 odd hours of flying I reckon looking at the lack of tread wear on the tyres it is pretty well spot on. Good luck.

[wingnut99]

Thanks for all the advice. I didn't have the top bolts for the engine mount so I was using some shorter one's just to hang it in place so pounding and forcing was kinda nerve wracking so I got to looking around my fairly well equipped wood working shop and hanging on the clamp pegboard was 6- 5' long pipe clamps. I pulled the mount off and laid it on the bench and pressed the legs into the mount. The only problem I had was that the 1st one hung up on the extra thickness of metal inside about 2" from coming through. It wasn't quite centered as it made contact so I put another clamp on the other end of the leg to pull it sideways enough to line up and it went through. When I put the other one in I grinded enough radius around the tip that it guided itself through. I'm going to have to hang the assembly back and put the axles on the get the correct length before I drill the mount holes but I'm hoping that since they've been through the mount once it'll be easier sailing removing it and reinstalling it again. If necessary I'll use a dowel rod and press them back out. I see that some of you drilled them in place but after the battle I had recently drilling the cotter pin holes in the axles, I'm probably going to clamp them down on the drill press and go very slowly. The mount was very expensive and took 8 weeks to get it. No point trying to save time now.