07-06-06

Removed all the silly nuts that came on the tube and discarded them except for this washer.

NOTE: Tire needs to be positioned so that the red dot on the TIRE lines up with the valve stem. I guess this is a balance thingy.

This apparatus has proven to be yet another tool of choice for lifting the craft off its gear for any maintenance. Its just a long eyebolt

with a 3/8" aluminum plate at the bottom.

You can certainly tell by now Vans way of thinkin is.... if you cant figure this wheel/brake setup puzzle on your own, you have no business

flying this bird. The pictures on the plans simply suck. They give terrible orientation of these parts. The text in the manual doesn't help

either. After a bit of surfing, you finally see a pic of how it is suppose to go. Pics below on preparation of parts installed during installation

of the left side.

Shown here is the bolt with its washer under the head.

Then a 5/16" washer for the shank and then a 1/4" washer for the threads. NOTE: The nut shown here was later replaced with a locking.

I couldn't find the two 1/4 x 20 nylon locking nuts Vans gives you. Good thing I had ordered some myself. They are the only 1/4 x 20

nuts on the entire plane.

Here's that nice new all metal locking nut.

I also made 3 of the 11/32" spacers for the wheel fairing mounting plate.

Moved all the tools for the complete job to the left wheel. Grease, mallet, drill, reamer, scotchbrite, yadda yadda

Moved the lifting eyelet to the left side of the spar to lift only the left side.

Deburred the holes inside the weldment.

Cleaned surface rust from the axle shaft.

Slid weldment onto the axle and reamed the hole through the parts. The weldment comes with an undersized on one side. So you need

to ream from the side with the larger hole in order for them to be reamed perfectly inline with one another.

Thes holes have a bit of powdercoating in them as well and dont line up perfectly. I installed to bolts on one side and just drilled

the other two through in order to fit the other 2 bolts.

Then applied a thin layer os grease to the axle shaft to prevent rust and ease of installation.

Again added one 5/16" washer under the head of the bolt, another 5/16" washer over the shank and then on this side I added two 1/4'

washers. It felt like the nut was bottoming on the threads on this side because the bolt didn't tighten very well so I added a thin washer.

Slid on the spacer.

Wah lah. Both main gear tires installed.

NOTE: I then center punched axles where the cotter pin will pass through the nut.

Then removed both landing gear and tires and drilled them in the drill press.

Lifted the front at the crank.

Final drilled the weldment and the gear leg using the ole trusty $9.99 angle air drill from Harbor Freight.

Installed the bolt and nut and wheel. This is the new style Vans speaks about on their site.