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Heads Up On Landing Gear Bushings

Steve Pierce

BENEFACTOR
Graham, TX
Here is a heads up on landing gear bushings, part number 80022-63 which is the bushing that is installed in the gear leg for the AN6 bolt to go through that holds the landing gear to the fuselage. The drawing calls out an O.D. of .4415/.4375" x .035", an I.D. of .371/.375" and a length of 1 1/4" made out of 1025 seamless tubing. If you buy these bushings they are $10.46 and are not reamed inside diameter. Therefore you are paying $10.46 for a piece of 7/16" tubing cut to length and then you get to ream it from .367 to .371/.375. These bushings get worn and if left unchecked they will start wearing out the welded in bushings in the landing gear fittings on the fuselage. Good way to check for this wear is to pick the airplane up with the gear leg free and shake it and look for play. Hope this saves someone some pain and aggravation. :wink:
 
Your son. Or alternately your daughter's boyfriend. At least that's the way my dad has always done it.
 
Steve,

Our U80022-063 bushings are centerless ground to .4415 to .4375 on the O.D. The I.D. is reamed to .371-.375. Grabbing one at random out of stock, the one I got was .374.

To date I haven't had any reports brought to me regarding fit.
 
Gary, I use a hoist on the prop and a weight on the opposite wing tie down.


Mike, I talked to Bill this am and he told me they were not reamed and that I had to ream to size after installation. Just got off the phone with Mike W. and he said they are reamed to .372/373" and he is sending me another set. I should have measured mine prior to installation because they are hard to ream after they are installed because it is not a real tight fit in the gear leg and they tend to want to rotate with the reamer.
 
Steve Pierce said:
If you buy these bushings they are $10.46 and are not reamed inside diameter. Therefore you are paying $10.46 for a piece of 7/16" tubing cut to length and then you get to ream it from .367 to .371/.375.

Same problem with the J3 fork bolt bushings, was given the excuse that they were to be "reamed to fit". Wouldn't be too hard to ream them to fit the bolt in production, a hell of a lot harder to do later.
 
Steve,
My Smith kit gear legs already measure about .372 and the AN 6 bolt fits snug with no allowance for a bushing. Have you had a chance to notice this area on any Smiths that you have worked on? Also, in the name of education, why does Piper only put the bushings in the aft attach points and not in all four? Thanks for the input.

J
 
Jay, I haven't worked on the landing gear of any Smith Cubs as of yet. Piper used the bushings in the front and rear fittings on the landing gear.
 
garyh said:
what is the best way to pick the plane up ?

Coincidentally, I was assisting my mechanic with a Super Cub annual last weekend. Since it didn't have lifting tabs on the spar attachments, we stripped the cowling off and hooked the spreader bar to the top 2 engine mounts points on the fire wall. Sorry, I don't recall the exact method of attachment as I was busy with the spark plugs at the time. This one had just a tiny bit of play in the front bolts.

Phil
 
O.K. I was looking in the parts book and it called out the part number you gave and showed them in the rear attach points only as well as only requiring (2 per ship). Just curious.

Thanks,
J
 
Steve
I have just tack welded the gear attach fittings on my cub project and noticed the Alaska airframes Heavy duty gear has what looks to be brass bushings. I knew from my PA22 experience that steel was the usual material for these bushings. Anyone else found the same with this gear and should I change as the brass will wear fast?

Jim Miller
 
I'd throw the brass bushings into the treasure box and get the steel ones and keep them lubed religiously....been there three times, each time the OD gets a bit bigger, a good machinist like "fobjob" can help keep machining costs reasonable, one of these days I'm probably going to spring for a new set of gear legs as all four of my attach points are oversized. Did I mention this cub has in the neighborhood of 18,000 hours? Not by me but from a previously exciting life of towing Airforce gliders. This definitely is something not to be overlooked, thanks for bringing it to the groups attention Steve.
 
Got my bushings today. These are centerless ground and reamed to size. The set I just installed were simply cut off tubing. I wonder how they got by the QC person? Thanks Mike W. at Univair for checking and making sure they were right.
 
Jim, speaking from no experience what-so-ever with cub gear, but strictly from an engineering standpoint, you might want to give the brass bushings a try. Brass is self lubricating against steel, so they might last a lot longer than you think. Especially since they won't attract dust and grit like a greased steel bushing would. And if they do wear out fast, you can always replace them with steel in the future.

Phil
 
......Our U80022-063 bushings are centerless ground to .4415 to .4375 on the O.D. The I.D. is reamed to .371-.375. Grabbing one at random out of stock, the one I got was .374.

Mike, I recently installed a set on a J3. They were not reamed to the correct size. I had to ream them out to 0.371
JimC
 
front attach points

I have been reading all of this dialog about the rear bushings so at the annual we lifted the plane and checked for slop. Sure enough there was some on the left side. We replaced the bushing yesterday and replaced all of the hardware front and back. TTSN 3346

My questions is, how much slop is allowed in the front attach points? Mine are not real bad but they are not a tight fit either. Since there are no bushings on the front, (and I sure don't know why there aren't!) do I use an NAS bolt or do I bore the hole and go to and next size AN bolt, Or do I forget about it and just go flying??

Thanks for considering my question.

Tom from IA
 
Mike Sellers, why are so many of us getting unreamed bushings when we order from you? These things are a major pain to ream in the field.
All the best,
JimC
 
I bought a set of Atlees 3" extended gear for my 18 last year and had to ream them as well.
 
Thanks Steve. I will have another look. The parts catalog doesn't mention them and I didn't see them.

Tom
 
What about the gear attach points on the fuselage? All four attach points are a bit loose. Can i re-bush these?
Also are there bushings in the cabane ends? I know those are loose as a goose.
 
Tom, The front gear attach bushings are the same as the back.
Steve, I am ordering the U80022-063 bushings and looking at the Univar interactive parts manual, it is saying only two bushings are required. Do I need a total of four bushings to do both gear legs?
 
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