Oleo Tool

[MikeB]

I tried compressing the springs and using safety wire in order to keep the compression but didn't seem to work for me so I came up with this plan to compress the spring and get the bushing pin in. Amounts to a couple of turnbuckles (with eyes) large fender washers, threaded rod and an aluminum block that I drilled to accept the threaded rod nuts. I guess one could tighten down the turn buckles to compress the spring but I locked the turn buckles and used the top nuts. Seems to work great and beats worrying about the safety wire snapping. For whatever it's worth, no leaks yet.

http://rs34.pbsrc.com/albums/d101/N688/ ... 6.jpg~c200

Edit: not sure why but there were a bunch of "pop ups" that appeared along with my picture/post when I clicked on the above link from photo bucket .

[jepropst]

Nice design Mike. I'll have to make me one. Certainly looks a lot faster and safer than safety wiring the spring. I'll update the oleo article with your photo. Thanks.

[John Baker]

Mike,

I like it! Much better than the safety wire method that, for me, has been successful on occasions and frustrating on other occasions. In fact, on my most recent oleo job, I reverted to using a bar clamp and a sand bag, as mentioned by Carl White years ago. Your tool makes the operation safer and easier than either of those methods. Boy, how I dislike working with springs! May I also use your photo on my website?

Tailwinds...

[MikeB]

John (and John)
Please go ahead. I've come to the conclusion that much of this 'old airplane rebuilding' amounts to having to 'invent' some tool or jig to make the job easier and/or safer. I think I can attach the picture to an email rather than having to take if off the photobucket site. Let me know what you think. I did find that two winds of the packing didn't leave a lot of gap between the packing cap and the top of the tube but we'll see how it comes out over a period of time (no leaks yet ). I should mention that although I locked the top (RH) turnbuckle nut, the bottom (LH) would tend to loosen unless I held the turnbuckle with a wrench (didn't have a left hand nut to lock the bottom).

Mike

[John Baker]

Mike,

I added your photo and a few comments to my webpage on oleo maintenance at this link:

http://www.hangar9aeroworks.com/Aeronca ... strut.html

Let me know if corrections are needed. I just used the PhotoBucket photo - seemed to work okay.

Tailwinds...

[MikeB]

John,
Looks fine. I hope it helps someone else out. For whatever reason I didn't have any good luck using the wire for a 'retainer' although that seemed to work fine for the no bounce gear on my L16. Might be a difference in the springs...I forget. Your article on oleo strut rebuilding was a great help to me and I referred to it several times (trips to and from the shop to the house/computer and back again )I wound up getting new strut frames with the bushings installed from Wag Aero as the bushings were worn and the strut brace had been repaired. Expensive but I guess worth it in the long run. On the first set they sent me the bushings were reamed undersize by .002-.003 and the oleo assembly wouldn't go in. The second set had about .002 clearance although even a bit snug at that. I suspect not everything is exactly "round' but it seemed to work OK.

Mike Berg

[Richard Murray]

Mike,

Great idea! One question comes to mind regarding the retainer bushing. Is it difficult to align with pressure on it to compress the spring? I used washers and a threaded rod with safety wire on my standard springs. It seemed to work fine following the directions of Baker and Probst. The no-bounce on my 7ECA concern me if I would have to work on them.

Richard

[jepropst]

One detail to keep in mind if you're using the safety wire method to retain the compressed spring is to only loop the end of the safety wire under one coil of the spring on each end, ie the safety wire does not run down the inside of the spring from one end to the other. If you do run the safety wire down the inside of the spring, you probably will not have space to get the piston rod up through the spring.

[MikeB]

Richard,
I didn't have any problem aligning the bushing although I 'eye balled' before I started compressing the spring and then I used a Phillips screw driver to twist it enough I could poke the screw driver bit through to align both pieces so the bushing could slide in. Unsure how it would work on the no bounce gear as I used the 'alternate method' on my L16 no bounce but I couldn't see there would be much difference. I had thought about making a 'safety cage' of sort in case the spring wanted to twist sideways when I was compressing but it didn't seem necessary...at least on the conventional oleo set up. I did it flat on the bench but thought it would be nice to be able to have everything up right in a vice. Tool is kind of a 'proto type' but seemed to work OK for me.

One other tidbit for whatever it's worth: after I had the packing and the packing retainer installed I slide a piece of tubing over the oleo shaft and 'carefully' tapped the packing into place (hoping it would make a initial tight seal).......so far so good.
Mike