Under carriage finishing off....16 hours

This seeming simple task, actually turned into a bit of a marathon. I was only planning on just making and fitting the fairings that go around the round undercarriage legs. However, when I placed my paper templates around the legs, I realised that the plans really didn't take into account having the Aerovee hydraulic brakes fitted. The just simply wouldn't work, plus the hydraulic lines stuck out and looked a little ugly. So, I thought I'd just fit a 90 degree fitting to make the hydraulic lines run smoothly alongside the rear of the caliper and up the gear leg. It was at this time that there was no where to actually jack up the aircraft. Somehow I had never noticed, as the last time I hadn't fitted the engine which meant that I could simply pick up the front of the aircraft, but you can't when the motor is fitted. Then another problem cropped up, as I lifted the wheel clear of the ground, I noticed that the wheel wobbled. When I had a closer look, the brake pads on the caliper stick out about 1mm proud of the centre boss of the caliper. This means that as you tighten up the centre axle nut the wheel gets pushed against the brake pucks, but the wheel bearings are still loose. I fixed this by inserting a thin 3/4" washer between the wheel bearing sealing washer and the brake caliper to push the wheel slightly away from the brake caliper. Yes, I know that there is mud on my wheel, but I promise that it's clean now!

This was the only way that I could lift up the aircraft to work on the undercarriage.

My way of lifting up the aircraft when I don't own a hoist.

This showed the modified axle and hydraulic line. It is now simple to fit a scissor jack under the axle extension. Plus the added benefit that the gear leg fairing is located by the axle extension without having the pin stick into the side of the wheel pant and just make things ugly when you need to service the wheel.