New Landing Gear installation

My new gear finally arrived from Grove Aircraft.I have finished all of the fuselage structural modifications. I have built all of the attach fittings and I have prefitted all of them. The gear is designed to clamp up between two radius filler blocks. The purpose of this design detail is to limit induced bending into the fuselage. If the gear were to be clamped with just flat plates, every time the gear deflected, the gear moment would be transmitted into the truss.

new gear

this is one heavy chunk of metal!! Makes me want to think about a mono wheel again.

attach fitting and radius plate

This image clearly shows the radius plate. The gear is clamped with two 3/8" dia bolts. I plan on silver soldering the bolt head to the inside of the steel fitting. This is so the bolts wont rotate when they are torqued. there will be a 3/4" counter bore in the fuselage that the heads will sit in. There is a slight amount of contour mismatch between the fitting and the fuselage truss. I will assemble these fitting with a bedding of Cotton Flox and epoxy. The primary load direction is in compression, with the exception of the fore/aft braking load .

3/4" counter bores

The area under the counter bore has been padded up such that the width of the gear bearing plate is supported.

The attach bolts that pass through these pads are bushed with a 1/2" diameter aluminum bushing.

After the gear is installed, I will need to fabricate a fabric rib that will sit on the front and rear of the gear. An aluminum cover will connect the ribs and fair in the gear