Fire, ice and grease

Getting the gear legs attached to the engine mount turned out to be a pain in the posterior. For some of my friends, the legs went easily into the gear sockets but I wasn’t so lucky.

Heat Gunner

I wound up greasing the crap out of the gear legs to make them go in easier, but that only got them in part of the way. I had to get a little creative at that point – I grabbed my trusty heat gun and warmed up the gear sockets just a little to expand them.

Ice bags

I also put some bags of ice on the gear legs themselves to shrink the metal ever so slightly.

Socketed gearMy very good friend Burt also came over to help.  He kept a firm hand on the fuselage to keep it from moving while I pushed, pulled and twisted on the gear. Thanks Burt!

In the end, we got the gear legs in…but it was a lot of work.