Jul 11, 2007     Nose Gear - (30 hours)       Category: C13 Nose+Gea

I don't have a great shot here of the nose gear itself. I lost a bunch of pictures during the move
and need to take some new ones.

Here you can see a few shots of the top of Jack Wilhelmson's nose lift. The manual extension rod runs through a bronze oil-impregnated bushing through the face of F22 and through a universal joint to the top of the lift. On the other side, if you look closely you can see where I accidentally broke open the sealing boot on the universal joint on the other side. Unfortunately that's going to be an expensive replacement - those things aren't cheap.

The manual extension rod runs through another bushing installed on the instrument panel. Right now it's hooked to a socket wrench that we use to adjust the gear when the power is off.

I did purchase and install the auto-extension unit (seen below just below the gear extension rod), although I'm not that thrilled with it. It's not that smart. Auto-extending the gear just because I turned the power on is an invitation to tip back, and I'm finding myself leaving its breaker off a lot to avoid that. I may rebuild the unit at some point to require at least a few mph of airspeed before it auto-extends.