Over the last couple of weeks I was able to get started on finishing the main gear installation. I had previously mounted the main gear weldments in the fuselage and fitted the gear legs, including drilling the upper mounting holes. Then I took the legs off and mounted the wings with the plane sitting on the table. With the move off of the table I could finish the gear.
I got the legs out and mounted them and then I started to prep all of the wheel and brake hardware. One of the things I had to do is shown in the bottom two pictures. Sonex’s instructions call for seating the bearings. I did this without some of the main gear hardware. There is a spacer and two washer like dust shields. When I tried cranking down one of the wheels on the axle, these parts were getting squeezed and started to deform. I got a 3/4” bolt and some washers and did this off of the axle. The bearings pull down a large amount, over an 3/16” between the two of them. The dust shield goes from sitting outboard of the wheel to just slightly recessed.
