You guys are supposed to be airplane builders with skills to build composite 
parts.  Fabricate a small box with the appropriate slant to it for the shims 
you need, then lay up a shim with the dimensions you need. If it's not quite 
right, you can grind, file or cut to suit yourself.  Do a test fit to see if 
it's right, then when you install it, bed it in a thin slurry of milled fibers 
for a no slip perfect fit.  If you have to go a bit oversized on the holes 
through the gear leg to get a proper fit (and keep the bolts straight), grease 
your bolts up with wax (so you can get them back out and backfill the holes 
with a milled fiber slurry.

Additionally, try to drill things so your bolts are straight and use a set of 
self aligning washers on the side where the head of the bolt or nut appears to 
be an an angle to the surface.  Self aligning washers are a pair of washers, 
one with a concave surface and the other with a convex surface. The concave 
surface of one washer sits on the convex surface of the second washer allowing 
them to cock off sideways from the bolt head and adapt to the surface of the 
gear leg.   When you pull a bolt down onto them with a hole that isn't normal 
to the head of the bolt, the two washers will swivel a bit to properly 
distribute the pull of the bolt onto the surface without side loading the axle 
attach bolt.  Just google "self aligning washers".

I used this technique to repair the landing gear on a GlasAir that had the gear 
badly misaligned, then the holes overdrilled and the bolts literally bent in 
the bolt holes hanging onto the axles.  

-Jeff Scott
Los Alamos, NM


Reply via email to