02-28-21 When I bought the project the seller had removed the Matco wheels and brakes and installed an old mismatched set of Cleveland axles & wheels (no brakes) and a set of bald tires. With most of the painting done I can return to using the Matco system. Back in 2018 I had bought from Infinity Aerospace his package of the 3-puck Matco's, thought to be the best way to handle the high landing inertia. It comes with axles, wheels, brakes and a parking brake. In January 2020 I purchased a set of "Monster Retreads" from Desser TIre. These are the largest tires that I expect ever to use, and they are the right choice while I am fitting the wheel pants. Tires. Sunday, 2/7/21, I mounted one tire. It took 4 hours - I kept redoing the work as I figured out the sequence. This morning I changed over both axles and mounted the other tire in 2 hours. Yep, experience matters a lot. Best sequence... 1. Disassemble package as received from Matco. Axle: clip the zip ties and remove the cotter pin and nut, remove the axle from the wheel. Brake: use a torx driver to remove the 3 machine screws securing the rotor plate. Set screws and rotor aside. Wheel: Use 7/16 socket and wrench to remove the 3 bolts securing the two halves of the wheel, then split halves. 2. Disassemble package as received from Desser. Remove inner tubes, check tire cavity for any included items (e.g., a bag of tire talc). 3. Inner tube prep. Valve stem: remove valve stem cap and larger brass nut from the valve stem, apply tire talc to inner tube, dumping any extra into tire, then insert inner tune into tire, aligning valve stem opposite of the red dot (marking the heavy side of the tire). Note that the innertube is still completely deflated. 4. One side of the wheel has a notch cut out for the valve stem. Place this on the table and position tire to align valve stem and notch. with no pressure, the tire will fit snugly on the wheel but will not yet be seated. The other side of the wheel has a hole for the valve stem. Position this half with the valve stem passing through the hole. Confirm that the valve stem is still opposite the red dot on the tire. With no washers on the bolt, secure the 3 bolts securing the two halves of the wheel. The nuts are engaged on the threads, but not tight. Secure the valve stem with its large brass washer. 5. Inflate the inner tube to 25-30 psi. This will push the tire rim onto the wheel. Fully deflate the inner tube. Remove the 3 bolts one at a time, this time using the washers. 6. When all three bolts are secure, reinflate tire to 35 psi. Bounce it on the floor several times, then leave it to stretch and settle. In 12 hours or so the pressure will drop several pounds. Reinflate to 35 psi. Test in 24 hours - the tire should be holding pressure. If it is not, disassemble and inspect for any leaks or cuts on the inner tube or a damaged Schrader valve. Reassemble and test again. Axles. The Cleveland and Matco axles have the same diameter and secure to the strut with the same hole pattern. Both are 1.25" in diameter. My Matco's are black, the Clevelands are gold and slightly longer. The Clevelands were removed and the Matco's installed, using AN4-20 bolts in place of the Cleveland AN4-24's. I was able to remove one washer and ended up with just one thread showing vs the 2 washers and 6 threads of the Cleveland install. Wheels. THe easy way to install the wheels is a) Lube bearings. I used a bearing greaser I had preloaded with Mobile 1 bearing grease, my preferred for this task. The conical bearings are open on the top and outside and have a rubber seal on the bottom. The bearings are full when you see the grease oozing past the cylindrical bearings to the outside of the bearing chase. Mobile 1 is a thick high pressure grease. A bench vise is the preferred solution - light pressure and 30 minutes vs. leaning on the press and wondering when it will show. b) hang the brake rotor and attached pads on the axle, then slide the inner bearing onto the axle. Slide the wheel onto the axle and confirm that the bearing is set and evenly seated on the wheel. Slide the outer bearing onto the axle and confirm that the bearing is set and evenly seated on the wheel. Secure with axle nut. Tighten by hand. Use the 3 torx fasteners to secure the rotor to the wheel. Secure axle nut with cotter pin, one hole past the tightest achievable by hand. 04-23-2009 (4 hours): Installing the axles was an interesting process. I'm in a hangar, so my "wall" is the hangar door, 30 feet away. That makes for good accuracy with this procedure, but it also means I have a very high ceiling, and hanging plumb lines is difficult (or impossible)! What I did instead was set up a straightedge across the gear, which I know are perfectly level and straight in the fuselage right now. I measured to its midpoint, and made a mark. I then measured equal lengths from each spar tip (which is also straight, and centered) to the nose to accurately find the centerline there, too. Finally, I set a laser line generator on a ledge on the back wall of the hangar so it projected a line through these two points. It took a LONG time to set up - almost 2 hours - because even tiny errors in angle became huge offsets when cast across the 50ft depth of the hangar. Next, I used the laser level on each gear leg right at the axle's midpoint to cast a point onto the far wall. A level line between these points and through the centerline gave me the "current" gear leg setting, and most important, the axle height. In my case my distance was 30 ft, so according to the plans this called for a 1.5in toe-in adjustment to equal 1 degree. I measured and marked these points on the wall (door). I started to flatten the legs to receive the axles, but this was hard going for me with my wrists. Poking around online, I noticed Hicks had made up for this by setting up a flox bed, and this seemed like a good method to me. I carefully drilled two of the four holes for each axle, taped the axles and greased some long bolts to go through them, laid down a bed of flox on each gear leg, then bolted on the axles. Since the leg was still a slight bit curved, I was able to adjust the toe-in just by adjusting the tightness of the two bolts. Very small changes (as little as an eighth of a turn of the nut) translated into very noticeable adjustments. After some tweaking, I was satisfied, and I cleaned up the flox that had squeezed out and walked away to let it cure. 2009-04-29 (3.50 hours): Trimming and backup plates Once the flox cured under each axle, I installed the Matco brake caliper and backplate, then marked where material should be removed for a close fit. It was slow going trimming the leg ends, but I managed it with a hack saw and a fresh blade, the Fein with a cheap, throw-away Harbor Freight blade, and several Dremel sanding drums. I then prep-sanded the area, did the BID wrap, and installed each backing plate with flox. I didn't re-install the axles for this step, opting instead to use a block on each side to make sure the BID sits flat against the flox pad I had previously built up under each axle (which sets the toe-in). This way the BID wrap is over the top of that pad. I'll be sure to check the toe-in one final time when I install the axles. 2009-04-30 (2.75 hours): Wheels Installed Installing the wheels was relatively straightforward now that the axles are finished. I removed the axles, cleaned up the layup area, then reinstalled the axles with the Matco brake cylinders on them. I inflated the tires to 45psi for now, and installed the wheels. Looks great! I still need to pack the bearings with grease, install the heat shields, and get the brakes set up, so I didn't torque everything down yet. I'll take care of that once the brakes are done. 2009-05-21 (1.50 hours): Brake Cylinder Plumbing I may want to tweak this setup slightly later. My Matco kit included nylon fittings which I may want to replace with brass at some point (although they do appear to seal very well). But in any event, this step worked out fairly well. I won't fill the lines yet - I still need to plumb the lines to the wheels, and I'm waiting to pull the gear out one last time to install the correct screws on the hard points before I take that step. 2011-09-03 (7.00 hours): Fabricating Wheel Pants There is a set of wheel pant molds floating around the mailing lists. The deal is that each builder pays the shipping cost and they move from builder to builder. John and I worked out a deal: he would get the molds and fabricate the pants, and I would supply enough cloth for two sets (one for me and one for him). I'm not sure who made out better: I went with carbon fiber, but it IS a fair bit of work. Here you can see John holding a pair of pants. They're made in two pieces initially because they release from the molds more easily that way (split the long way) and it's easier to do the layups. You then take them out of the mold, get the mold release off, cut them in half the short way, and BID-tape the left and right halves together. This forms a pair of shells, front and back, that attach via brackets and nut plates to the gear legs. To attach the pants you need to make a bracket to support the inboard side. There is a set of instructions for installing them that details how this bracket should be formed. The other side mounts to an axle nut from Vans Aircraft. I BELIEVE this is the VA-106 nut - once it arrives I'll confirm and update this post. 2011-09-10 (1.50 hours): Brake plumbing at wheels To plumb the brakes at the wheels I bought a pair of pre-made 12" braided stainless hoses with 1/8" NPT fittings pre-installed. These are smaller and lighter than what you can install yourself, and have very high burst pressure ratings. You can frequently find these cheaply on eBay. Mine are rated for 1800psi - plenty of margin. To install them, I installed 1/8" NPT male-to-female right-angle fittings in the Matco calipers. The braided hoses run from these fittings up to a 1/8" NPT female-to-female coupler, and then into a 1/8" male NPT to 1/4" Nyloseal (mine are actually Parflex, which has a higher burst pressure) fitting on the brake line coming down the gear leg. A few stainless wire ties will complete the picture once I get them. Step 6 - Constructing Landing Brake Status: Completed Est Time: 0.00, Actual: 6.50 Est Cost: $ 0.00, Actual: $ 0.00 Date Completed: 11/15/2007 2007-11-15 (6.50 hours): Fairing and micro The landing brake works very well on the actuator I chose for it (an eBay special, but small, lightweight, and well made). It is now installed and micro applied to fair the entire surface into a smooth final product.