ESTIMATED COST OF ASSEMBLY: $1700
ouch! to purchase, rebuild, and plate, plus wheel and tire) MODIFICATIONS: * Used a
heavier front tube to allow bushings to seat better, and to prevent "warping"
when welding. * Used traditional springs on shimmy damper instead
of spring washers. * I redesigned the gear "lock hooks" so that the
lock actuating assembly lives inside of the hull. This keeps
from having too many cables in the gear well (and potentially getting tangled
up) and now the front lock is actuated by a direct connection rather than
cables and return springs. *The steering cables are weighted and
connected with a light weight spring to get them to deploy into the proper
position on gear retraction. At this point I have cycled the mechanisms
about 1000 times and all works nice and smoothly. NOTES ON PLANS: I actually
was able to purchase this assembly from another builder who had presumably
bought it from Spence "back in the day". He had it for years, then
it sat around until it was time for me to install it. I then decided
that I needed to improve a few things on it. I re-manufactured the
two primary tubes that are the base of the unit. I did this because
the original welding had warped the tubes enough that the hinge (used to
steer the front gear) was binding and did not operate smoothly. I
did this using a heavier stock so that the tubing would not warp and cause
the same problem I was attempting to eliminate. A second benefit
of the thicker tubes is that they allowed me to machine a shoulder into
the tubing to better hold the suspension bushings. This caused some
weight penalty but I have been made aware that it is likely that I will
end up adding lead to the nose of the aircraft to counter the heavier
engine, so the issue is mute. I also rebuilt the spring/nutcracker
because it was too flat. NOTES ON ASSEMBLY: I welded
the hinge tubes to the main tubes first, shimming the smaller tubes slightly
off so the welding would not distort the smaller tubing. I then welded
all of the misc tabs onto the two tubes (for return springs, shimmy dampers,
and the retraction yoke) . Lastly I cut the shoulders (with a lathe)
for the bushings to insure that I was not going cause the bushings to "squeeze"
or go out of round, and bind on the chrome plated suspension tube. THINGS I WOULD DO DIFFERENTLY NEXT
TIME: I am pleased with all of the modifications that I made
to get to this end product, unfortunately much of this was a trial and
error process, fixing things after building to the plans and having them
not work smoothly enough to meet my approval. This essentially took
a lot of time to get the systems worked out. In my opinion the whole
works could be redesigned and improved. The gear sits nice and high
in the gear well and out of the water. Improvements might include
using stainless steel where ever possible, adopting a lock system similiar
to mine, and eliminateing the combination leaf spring/nutcracker
and replacing it with a traditional coil spring and nutcracker.
Seen here is the FLG assembly as
I was able to purchase it. Note how long and flattened out the Nutcracker/spring
is. I rebuilt this as well as the two main tubes because the welding
had warped the assembly to where its hinge did not function smoothly.
